R' Hirsch: Decluttering Midrash -- Boruch Clinton

 R' Hirsch: Decluttering Midrash - by Boruch Clinton

Modern kabbalists seem to enjoy using ambiguous statements from Tanach or Chazal to strengthen their theological or ideological positions. Although to be fair, which of us, in moments of weakness, hasn’t done that kind of thing ourselves?

No matter who’s quoting a particular source and no matter what his agenda might be, using it as a proof text requires evidence. It’s not good enough to say “well the words could mean what I’m saying.”

Some of those associations have been so widely repeated as to become widely accepted as the passage’s authoritative meaning.

One good example is the use of Job 31:2 in support of the startling (and theologically challenged) assertion that a human soul is somehow a piece of God. Here’s the verse itself:

ומה חלק אלוק ממעל ונחלת שדי ממרמים

Look at the reward given me from above by God, and the inheritance of the Sufficient One from the heights

The kabbalists who (mis)use this verse conveniently ignore the first word (ומה), violently shift the contextual meaning of חלק from “reward” (or “portion”) to “part”, and assume the existence of the word של (as in חלק של אלוק). And even then, there’s no indication from what’s left that the remaining words are even discussing human beings and their souls.

In other words, the source itself simply doesn’t support the remarkable claim that claims to rely on it.

One of the many benefits of learning Rabbi Hirsch is watching how he’ll often casually quote a source in a way that reminds you how there’s something less there than meets the eye. Or, put better, how a passage doesn’t need - or tolerate - anything more than its simple, straightforward reading.

Here are two wonderful examples.

Dreams and Visions

The Gemara (Yoma 69a) famously describes a fateful meeting between the High Priest Shimon Hatzadik and Alexander the Great:

כיון שראה לשמעון הצדיק ירד ממרכבתו והשתחוה לפניו אמרו לו מלך גדול כמותך ישתחוה ליהודי זה אמר להם דמות דיוקנו של זה מנצחת לפני בבית מלחמתי

When he (Alexander) saw Shimon Hatzadik, he dismounted from his chariot and bowed before (Shimon). [Alexander’s officers] said to him ‘a great king like you should bow to this Jew?’ [Alexander] said to them: ‘The image if this man led me victorious in my battles.’

One could be forgiven for assuming that the Gemara wants us to believe that Alexander was miraculously shown Shimon Hatzadik in dreams before each of his successful battles. I know that that’s how I always understood it. The problem is that the Gemara itself says nothing of the sort.

Rabbi Hirsch, in Volume II page 432 of his Collected Writings, has a different approach:

And to the astonishment of this princes and troops, Alexander, seeing Simon thus arrayed, dismounted from his chariot and bowed low before Simon, the Jewish High Priest, explaining to his men that he saw in Simon the embodiment of the ideals that had inspired his own military campaigns.

This description of the event contains a far reaching insight into world history and an organic connection to the source that, to me at least, feels both practical and meaningful. But more to our point, it remains faithful to the words themselves without the need to clutter them with apparently unsubstantiated miracle stories.

continue reading

-----------

Clinton goes on to give more examples. I believe he is demonstrating here an incredibly important feature of Rav Hirsch's Torah which is that he somehow makes it idealistic yet down to earth. This applies not just to reading of Midrash but to practice itself. In Horeb, he makes the entire halacha approachable. He makes the entire religion sensible whereas many rabbis make it seem unapproachable and even hard to believe.