VII (A) An Appendix on the “Haggadah”
Before closing this little sketch of the Talmud and of the very early Rabbinical writings, it will be well to give a somewhat more detailed explanation of one of its more important features, which we have already somewhat lightly touched upon—the “Haggadah.”
It is not too much to say that the widespread, the lasting popularity of the mighty book—the Talmud—is largely owing to this special kind of exposition, which includes the Historical, the Legendary, the Homiletical, and the Comforting. It is absolutely peculiar to the Talmud; there is nothing resembling it in the official or acknowledged writings belonging to any other religious system.
In the Exile and in the lengthened period which directly followed the Exile, i.e. in the five centuries which intervened between the “Return from the Exile” and the Christian era, the Chosen People had learned, as we have noticed, to love their Scriptures with a great love, a love that may be termed a passion. It was then that the sacred books became, and for long centuries remained, the centre of their lives. The study of these books, the study which included research, investigation, exposition, application to every event in their lives, to every possible contingency which might happen to them, is known as Midrash.
Legendary history which clustered round the events related in the sacred books, details not chronicled in the text of the books, but carefully treasured up, preserved and handed down, circumstances more or less interesting and important connected with the lives of the principal Biblical personages, were gradually gathered together, were carefully sifted out and discussed by the scribes and doctors of the law, and if finally received as authentic by the great Jewish teachers, were written down170 and handed on from generation to generation.
This work and study especially connected with the non-legal portions of the Scriptures known as “Haggadah,” certainly received a mighty impulse in the times of the Scribes before the Christian era, and reached its highest development in the famous Academies of Palestine and Babylonia which arose after the events of A.D. 70. We may roughly compute this great period of the development of the “Haggadah” as reaching from A.D. 72–100 to A.D. 500 or 550. The creative Haggadic activity may be said to have ceased after this last date.
Although “Haggadic” notices or comments appear not unfrequently in the exclusively legal section of the Pentateuch, they belong more especially to those Scriptures which treat of history, narrative, and teaching—including, of course, the prophetic writings. In the first instance the “Haggadic” Midrash confined itself to the simple exposition of the Scripture text, but it very soon developed into comments of a very varied nature, not unfrequently into homilies inculcating religious truths and moral maxims, into disquisitions on the past and future glories of Israel; roughly speaking, the “Haggadah” on a passage or section of the canonical Scriptures endeavoured, by penetrating beneath the mere literal sense, to arrive at the spirit of the Scripture in question. In the Talmud (Sanhedrim Treatise) it has been well compared to a hammer which awakens the slumbering sparks of a rock.
Legendary additions, of course, form an important part of the Haggadah, but these ancient traditions or legends by no means, as some suppose, constitute the bulk of this vast and wonderful commentary on the canonical or acknowledged Scriptures.
Among the sources where we find this curious Biblical literature which has been a very important link in the Talmud chain which has been the great bond of union of the scattered Jewish race for so many centuries, of course primarily must be reckoned the Mishnah and the two Gemaras, the Palestinian and the Babylonian, which constitute the Talmud. Here are found many of those “Haggadic” comments which naturally are regarded with the deepest reverence, as they have received the seal of approval of the doctors of the great Academies of Sura, Pumbaditha, and Tiberias, who flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era.
But there are “Haggadic” notices of great antiquity and in still larger numbers preserved in writings which form the non-canonical Mishnah, works subsidiary and auxiliary to the Mishnah proper, some of which even date from the second and third century or even earlier, and have ever possessed among the learned Jews a very high authority. For example, in the Targums (Targumim) are very many pieces of an “Haggadic” nature, not a few evidently of a remote antiquity and of the highest interest.
It is, of course, impossible in the limits of such a brief sketch of so vast a subject to give any adequate illustration of this vast collection of Haggadah; we will simply quote two or three examples taken from the Palestine Targum on the Torah on the Book of Deuteronomy, where the original text is expanded by words of tradition or legend, by homiletics, by words of teaching, of comfort and encouragement.
From the Palestine Targum on the Torah (Deuteronomy chap, xxxiii.). “And he (Moses) said: The Lord was revealed at Sinai to give the law unto His people of Beth Israel, and the splendour of the glory of His Shekinah arose from Gebal to give itself to the sons of Esau; but they received it not. It shined forth in majesty and glory from Mount Pharan, to give itself to the sons of Ishmael; but they received it not. It returned and revealed itself in holiness unto His people of Israel, and with Him ten thousand times ten thousand holy angels. He wrote with His own right hand, and gave them His law and His commandments, out of the flaming fire.”
“And he saw at the beginning that a place had been prepared there for a sepulchre, a place strewn with precious stones and pearls, where Mosheh the prophet, the scribe of Israel, was to be hidden, (who) as he went in and out at the head of the people in this world, so will he go in and out in the world to come; because he wrought righteousness before the Lord, and taught the orders of the judgments to the sons of Israel.”
“There is no God like the God of Israel, whose Shekinah and Chariot dwell in the heavens. He will be your helper. He sitteth on His glorious throne in His majesty, in the expanse of the heavens above. The habitation of Eloha is from eternity; by the arm of His power beneath the world is upborne. He will scatter your adversaries before you, and will say by His Word, Destroy them. And Israel shall dwell safely as of old according to the benediction with which Jakob their father did bless them, for whose righteousness’ sake He will cause them to inherit the good land that yieldeth corn and wine; the heavens also above them will drop with the dews of blessing and the rains of loving-kindness. Happy are you, O Israel: who of all the nations are like you, a people saved in the Name of the Word of the Lord? He is the shield of your help, and His sword, the strength of your excellency.”
From Deuteronomy chap. xxxiv. “Blessed be the Name of the Lord of the world, who hath taught us His righteous way. He hath taught us to clothe the naked, as He clothed Adam and Hava (Eve); He hath taught us to unite the bridegroom and the bride in marriage, as He united Hava (Eve) to Adam. He hath taught us to visit the sick, as He revealed Himself to Abraham when he was ill from being circumcised; He hath taught us to console the mourners, as He revealed Himself again to Jakob when returning from Padan in the place where his mother had died. He hath taught us to feed the poor, as He sent Israel bread from heaven; He hath taught us to bury the dead by (what He did for) Mosheh; for He revealed Himself in His Word, and with Him the companies of ministering angels: Michael and Gabriel spread forth the golden bed, fastened with chrysolites, gems, and beryls, adorned with hangings of purple silk, and satin, and white linens. Metatron, Jophiel, and Uriel, and Jephephya, the wise sages, laid him upon it, and by His Word conducted him four miles, and buried him in the valley opposite Beth Peor;—that Israel, as oft as they look up to Peor, may have the memory of their sin; and at the sight of the burying-place of Mosheh may be humbled; but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day.”