VIII (B) On the “Halachah” and “Haggadah”
We would add a few words further explanatory of the Halachah. The Halachic Midrash (or exegesis and development of the passages of the Law) dealt with the exact purport of the various Divine commands contained in the Torah, or Law of Moses. It explained in detail how these precepts were to be carried out in common life. It professed to be nothing more than an exposition of the original Law; but in reality it contained vast additions to what was written in the Books of Moses, and claimed to possess an equal authority with the original charges contained in the Pentateuch.
Roughly, these so-called Halachic developments were divided into three classes or categories—
1. Halachah or commands traced back to Moses.
2. A great mass of Halachah—containing traditional ordinances professedly based on the original Mosaic commands, but in reality connected with the Mosaic ordinances by the very slightest of ties.
3. A number of enactments really only emanating from the schools of the Scribes, but which were taught to be equally binding with the original Pentateuch ordinances. These Halachah largely dated from the years which preceded the Christian era; they were, in the last half of the first century and during the second century, codified and arranged in the Mishnah.
The general purport of the Halachic Midrash, which contains the rule of Israelitic life and which so long occupied the Scribes and their schools, was very largely connected in the first place with the elaborate network of sacrifice, and the usages which followed and preceded the many and complicated various offerings. The Halachah might fairly be called The Law and Rule of Jewish Ritual. Its subject-matter has been well and tersely summed up as follows: The Halachic Midrash sought to establish, by laws which were absolutely binding on every true Jew, the manner in which God desires to be honoured; what sacrifices are to be offered to Him, what feasts and fasts are to be kept in His honour, and generally what religious rites are to be observed by the people. Other questions are, however, discussed and resolved in the Halachah, but these other points fill after all a comparatively small space in the great legal commentary or ritual which occupies so important a place in the vast Talmud compilation.
Haggadah
The writer of the foregoing “study” feels that a sadly incomplete picture of the “Haggadah,” the popular division of the Talmud, has been painted. A few more remarks on this singular and important portion of the Talmud are given by way of further elucidation of this strange form of exegesis (Midrash) of the Holy Scriptures.
We have already stated that broadly the “Halachic” Midrash or exegesis belongs especially to the Books of the Pentateuch, and the “Haggadic” Midrash rather to the other Books of the Old Testament writings.
But even in the Pentateuch, narrative and history occupy a wide space, and in the Pentateuch Midrash we find too a mass of Haggadic commentary on the narrative and historic portions of the five Books of Moses.
Here the “Book of Jubilees” (century 1) may be quoted as a striking instance of early Haggadic Midrash or exegesis of Scripture. It reproduces the Book of Genesis, and curiously amplifies and largely supplements the original text.
Dwelling on the history of Creation, the Haggadic scribe tells us how “in the twilight on the evening before the first Sabbath, ten things were created—(1) The chasm in the earth, in which Korah and his company were swallowed up. (2) The opening of Miriam’s well. (3) The mouth of Balaam’s ass. (4) The Rainbow. (5) The Manna of the Wilderness. (6) The famous Shamir, the worm which splits stones, traditionally used in the making of the Tabernacle and its furniture. (7) The Rod of Moses. (8) Alphabetic writing. (9) The writing of the Tables of the Law. (10) The stone tables on which the Ten Commandments were written.”
The devout student of the Old Testament will read with deep interest the above-quoted reference to the purely Haggadic passage taken from the “Book of Jubilees,” in which an allusion is made to the ass who reproved Balaam.
This is one of the recitals in the Old Testament Scriptures which has ever, for various reasons, been a difficulty, when regarded as a piece of actual history. Its appearance in the “Book of Jubilees” among other evidently Haggadic or purely legendary amplifications of the original text, suggests that even in the Pentateuch the inspired compiler has occasionally introduced in his narrative details which in the opinion of the very early Scribes belonged evidently to the realm of Haggadah or legend.
In the Haggadah of the Pentateuch a vast cycle of legends accompanies the original Genesis account of famous heroes of Israelitic history, such as Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Aaron.
A good specimen of Haggadic legendary amplification is given above in the extract from the Jerusalem Targum on Deut. xxxiv., where the death of Moses and the circumstances attending his burial are related. Again, one of the canonical writings of the Old Testament, the Book of Chronicles, is a fair example of the less fanciful Haggadic historical Midrash. Here the compiler of the book in question adds to the original record of the Jewish kings a number of details not found in the Books of Kings and in the older histories of Israel.
The Haggadah specially enlarges at great length, and with much detail, the passages which even remotely refer to the future, to the angels, and to the heavenly world; it amplifies all the mystic sections which deal with the glory of the Eternal, such as the “chariot” of Ezekiel, that wonderful introductory vision of his great prophecy.
Even in the New Testament Epistles and in the “Acts,” Haggadic influence is noticeable in several well-known passages; for instance, in S. Paul’s 2nd Epistle to Timothy iii. 8, the names of the Egyptian magicians Jannes and Jambres, which do not appear in the Genesis history, are given. A still more remarkable example of Haggadic influence is the singular legendary account of the Rock in 1 Cor. x. 4, where the rock from which, at Moses’ bidding, the water gushed forth is represented as positively accompanying the Israelites during their desert wanderings. Again, in Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, Heb. ii. 2, the Law is represented, not as given to Moses by God Himself, as related in the Pentateuch, but as reaching him through the medium of angels.