Parshas Vayigash
QUESTION:
Why is it that about 1/7th of Shas Bavli consists of moralistic teachings, stories and advice (agadata)?
ANSWER:
The gemara is not given to us just as a book of laws. The gemara is a way of life, therefore it tells us what we need in order to live. It's the same question that you can ask, if you have a human being, why is there such a mixture? There is blood mixed together with tissue, and bones, all stuff mixed together. Wouldn't it be better if you had all the bones in one place, a box of bones, and here is a box of meat, and a big bottle of blood… The bottles are on the shelf but he wouldn't be alive.
In order for the Talmud to be alive, you have to mix all these elements. You have to have a history, if you don't understand history from the Torah viewpoint then you're a cripple, you're mentally a cripple. That's why those boys who learn the gemara and skip the agadata, are mental cripples. Not only boys, but even rosh yeshivos who have skipped agadata all their lives, they just learn the halacha, they don't understand what Torah is, because Torah is an entity that contains all the parts that go together that make it one thing.
You have to have derech eretz, you need good manners, and the gemara is full of agadata. You have to have tanach – tanach is the breath of the gemara, it's the spirit of life of the gemara. The medroshim that the gemara comments on, explains things, enlightens things, opens our eyes. And you need health, if people don't have advice about proper living, then they won't take care of themselves, and like the Rambam says "you can't be a servant of Hashem if your body is not healthy".
So you need all the things together, and that's why it's mixed, the agadata is not in a separate sefer, it's all mixed. And as you are learning gemara there's a little island of agadata, and you refresh your neshomo, you get what you need and you go on again to the gemara, to the technical halachos. And this wonderful plan, the great minds of Rav Ashi's yeshiva perfected. It's not by accident, it's not haphazard, it's not a ramshackle thing; talmud bavli is extremely cunningly planned.
It's like somebody who wants to do a good job, so he extracts from the wheat, from the flour all the vitamins. You could do it by milling, or by sifting, you get rid of all the bran and you leave only the starch. It looks beautiful, you bake a challah, here's a challah with nothing but starch, but there is nothing in it; no vitamins, none of the minerals. So if you eat it, what's going to happen to you? Therefore you have to put the vitamins back in again, that's what they do today.
Today when you learn gemara without the agadata, it's eating starch without the vitamins. That's why they introduced mussar into the yeshivos, mussar is like putting back the vitamins. But when you eat the whole gemara it's whole wheat, like Hakadosh Baruch Hu planned it. He planned whole wheat, all the good stuff is there.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
|