Ancient wisdom and so salient for today. Halakha (or Halachah) represents the strength to shape one’s life according to a fixed pattern; it is a form-giving force. Aggadah is the expression of human kind’s ceaseless striving, which often defies all limitations. Robert Cover, a twentieth century Yale Law School professor wrote in Nomos and Narrative, “No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning.” Law (halachah) is embedded in the story (aggadah) that the Israelites experienced. Haim Nahman Bialik describes, halachah as the “crystallization the ultimate and inevitable quintessence of Aggadah; Aggadah is the content of Halachah.”
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Halakha is the rationalization and schematization of living; it defines, specifies, sets measure and limit, placing life into an exact system.
Aggadah deals with human kind’s ineffable relations to God, to other humans, and to the world.
Halakha deals with details, with each commandment separately.
Aggadah with the whole of life, with the totality of religious life.
Halakha deals with the law.
Aggadah with the meaning of the law.
Halakha deals with subjects that can be expressed literally.
Aggadah introduces us to a realm which lies beyond the range of expression.
Halakha teaches us how to perform common acts.
Aggadah tells us how to participate in the eternal drama.
Halakha gives us knowledge.
Aggadah gives us aspiration.
To consist exclusively of Halakha is as erroneous as to consist exclusively of Aggadah. The two are interrelated –Halakha without Aggadah is dead, Aggadah without Halakha is wild.
