Aggadah

Another problem posed by the undeveloped Jewish scholarly personality emerges when individuals accept interpretations or accounts that originate from the Aggadah literature (third to twelfth century AD) as imperatives, or embrace various customs originating in the Kabbalah (twelfth to thirteenth century AD).

In some of his early works, the sermon collection titled Midbar Shur and his commentary to Talmudic Aggadah, 'Eyn Ayah, his prolixity and the mounting rush of his ideas overwhelm the respective genres of sermon and commentary, making them rough going for the average student (not to mention the intended listeners of Midbar Shur).

Halakhah along with aggadah comprise the entirety of Judaic faith.

(150) See, e.g., Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 28a ("The Torah, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Aggadah, and even whatever conscientious scholars will in the future originate, all was revealed to Moses as Sinai.").

His definition of narrativity rejects the traditional dichotomy between law and narrative (and, similarly, that between halakhah and aggadah) since, according to his definition, all texts exist on a narrativity spectrum where a text's measure of narrativity is determined by the number and prominence of its narrative attributes.

According to Midrash Aggadah, Cain's rejection--unanticipated and unjustified in his eyes--quickly led him to a categorical conclusion: God's meting out of reward and punishment is devoid of justice.

For a deeply hidden beauty draws me to my father's origins, to the pages of the Bible and Aggadah (47) Drawing me like a mother's heart to a son who has sailed off seeking wonders-- (48) in a strange land.

The Talmud is comprised of two distinct subject matters: halakhah, judicial discussions and decisions, and aggadah, homiletic discourses and interpretation.

(41) Nevertheless, in the Rabbis' view even an example set by God in ordering the world essentially belonged to the domain of aggadah (homiletics), and does not supply an adequate foundation for a specific halakha, (42) The Rabbis might appeal to God's example when enunciating general rules of religious, moral, or prudent conduct, (43) or would reference it when elucidating a halakhic principle already established on other, proper legal grounds, but would go no further.

The other category is aggadah, translated as "legends," which are narrative tales, such as the one about Abraham and the idols imaginative attempts to understand biblical stories.

The term "aggadic" (from "Aggadah," narrative or lesson) refers to creative elaborations on stories from the Hebrew Bible as found in rabbinic sources, such as the Talmud and Midrash, and (by extension) in some other early Jewish sources, such as Philo and Josephus.