ABSTRACT

WHAT Agada or Midrash is the Midrash itself states. In a conspicuous utterance concerning its use and function it characterizes itself as Benedictions and Consolations, וזזםחנו וזזברכ. Primarily then, and in its inner core and essence, it is consolation, that is, a feeding of the life-impulse when harassed and threatened by tragic circumstance. Tragic circumstance was the special environment, unexampled suffering the special historic lot, of the Jew. And to guard against despair because of the unremitting enemy from without, and against the temptation to despair because of doubt and weakening faith from within, the Jewish genius prepared for itself, alongside of the code of law which governed its daily living, a great wellspring of assurance and re-assurance, of comfort and ground for faith. That is what the Agada aims to be alongside of the Halakah, the “faith” alongside the “works,” which in the Christian world may be contrasted but which here are the twin sources of Jewish being and the twin pillars on which it equally rests.