Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method

by R. Travers Herford

I have said that Haggadah is interpretation of Scripture in all directions except that of precept. And that is true; but the term "interpretation" must be taken in a very wide sense. A connection of some kind there always is between Scripture and Haggadah; but it is sometimes extremely slight. For the Haggadic interpreter performed his task in two ways: either he developed what he believed to be the real teaching of Scripture upon this or that point; or he sought to find in Scripture a sanction for truths which he already believed. And not merely for definite truths, but for anything which might tend to edification,—ethical principles, mystical speculations, meditations on providence and the wonders of creation, the imaginings of pious fantasy, and even the play of daring wit. There was nothing that could not find a place in the Haggadah, if it could be linked on to some text or word or letter of Scripture. The methods employed were, from the point of view of strict exegesis, often wildly extravagant. No freak of allegory, of word-play, of fantastic juggling with letters and syllables, is without illustration in the Haggadah. And the men who employed such methods knew well that what they were setting forth was not the plain literal meaning of Scripture. What they saw, with their inward vision, was the divine truth, holiness, justice, beauty, goodness, love; they read it in their own experience, and traced it in nature and history and man. They looked to see it all mirrored in Scripture; for there was the divine revelation, and there all that they believed to be divine must be. Some of it could be plainly seen; for, in essentials, the Haggadic teaching upon ethics and piety kept to the main lines of the Scriptures. What could not be plainly seen was inferred to be there; and no hint was too slight to indicate its presence. We say that this means reading into the text what is not there. And doubtless that is the case. But the Haggadist did not so understand what he did. If he was conscious of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, which he felt to be variously good, then, since Scripture was for him the only vehicle of divine revelation, somewhere in Scripture must be indicated all that various good. And any method was justified by which it could be brought forth and made clear. That I take to be the theory of the Haggadah, the explanation which a Haggadist would give of the reason for his peculiar treatment of Scripture. Haggadah, like Halachah, is a natural, perhaps even a necessary, development of a religion of Torah. Both are integral parts of Torah; and a thorough understanding of the nature and function of each is necessary for the understanding of the whole. Halachah and Haggadah, together with the personal spiritual life of the individual, cover the whole field of the religious consciousness of the Pharisee. For it is entirely wrong to say that the Pharisee was wholly taken up with the Halachah, the discipline of direct precept. No Pharisee that ever lived confined his thoughts and aspirations, his beliefs and hopes, within the range of Halachah, nor could have done if he had tried. He guided his conduct by the Halachah certainly, because he believed that by following it he was doing the will of God exactly as it ought to be done. But the Halachah did not teach him, and did not profess to teach him, how he should think about God, nor did it seek to regulate his own private communion with his Father in heaven. For this last he sought no other teacher except the promptings of his own soul and the answer of God to his prayers. And for the knowledge of God's nature and His works in providence and human history, he gladly learned from any wise and gifted teacher who could tell him anything, or in any way help him to think wisely, to worship devoutly, to live worthily. I shall have more to say about this in the concluding chapter. I only mention it here, because it was necessary to show the place which the Haggadah occupied in the religious thought of the Pharisee, and how it did for him what in other religions is done by a scheme of doctrinal theology. For the present I keep to the subject of the Haggadah itself, and proceed to inquire what can be learned from it as to the main heads of Pharisaic belief, especially in the period covered by the New Testament. It is mainly for the sake of this inquiry that I have given the foregoing explanation of the nature and intention of Haggadah.

The inquiry is by no means an easy one. For, while it is only necessary to open a volume of the Talmud, or of one of the great Midrashim, to find on almost every page some Haggadic utterance, often indeed a great mass of Haggadah, it is wholly unwarranted to say "this" and "this" is what the Pharisees believed. It may be; and, of course, if it were not in some way acceptable to Pharisaic minds, according to their canons of judgment, it would not be found in their books. But the Haggadah does not carry its meaning on the surface, nor yield it to the hearer or reader who has only a passing glance for it or a careless ear. And thus, what really represents the truth believed, or the good discerned, the element to which the mind assented, and which it gratefully received, is not expressed in the verbal form of the Haggadah, nor in its statements,—extravagant and even impossible as they sometimes are. There was no idea of taking those statements as they stand, as if they were to be accepted as true, and believed as divine revelations. When it is said by a Haggadist that since the creation God has been occupied in making marriages (Ber. R., p. 133^c § 68. 4), that does not represent as it stands what any Pharisee, or the Haggadist himself, really believed about God. As George Eliot truly says of that particular Haggadah, "The levity of the saying lies in the mind of him who hears it"; and, as she might have added, puts a frivolous meaning on it. The Haggadah is full of such things; but the Haggadah is not on that account frivolous or absurd. And when the unwary Christian produces specimens of Haggadah, and says, "See what those Rabbis believed and taught," the foolishness which he illustrates is not that of the Rabbis. To get at the real meaning and serious purpose of Haggadic teaching is one of the difficulties in the inquiry into what the Pharisees believed. In itself it is not a great difficulty, but it needs to be recognised.

A further difficulty is presented by the question, how far can the utterance of some individual teacher be taken to represent a generally accepted belief, seeing that there was no requirement of uniformity of belief? To that question a decisive answer is scarcely ever possible, except within wide limits of probability. If a doctrine can be formulated upon some topic of theology, it will represent a de facto consensus of belief, rather than the conscious acceptance of the teaching of any authority; and those who held the belief might still prefer a different statement of it. Everywhere caution is necessary in drawing forth from the Haggadah its real meaning, and in forming conclusions as to the generality of its acceptance.

A still further difficulty, and one which is of especial importance for the purpose of this book, is that of using, for comparison with the teaching of the New Testament, Haggadah often of much later date. Of the enormous mass of Haggadah contained in the Rabbinical literature, only a small proportion is contemporary with the Gospels, and very little indeed contemporary with Jesus. One of the most famous Haggadists was R. Joshua b. Levi, in the middle of the third century of our era. If we find that he teaches some doctrine, are we entitled to use his words as evidence that such doctrine was believed by Pharisees in the time of Jesus and the Apostles? If not, then, of course, the appeal to the Talmud and Midrash, in illustration of Pharisaism in the New Testament period, is futile. Here, again, caution is necessary; but, with caution, the answer is that the later literature may rightly be used as evidence of earlier beliefs and ideas. We have already met the same question in reference to the Halachah (see above, Chapter II.). And the answer there was that the principle of Halachah was accepted, and the development of that principle was begun long before the time of Christ. What changed continuously through the centuries was the body and form of ascertained Halachah, determined by the gradual expansion into greater detail of its precepts, and their application to a greater variety of cases. The Halachah, as codified in the Mishnah, is much more extensive than the Halachah as it was known to the Pharisees in the time of Jesus. But the intention of it is the same for the earlier period as for the later. Wherefore it is legitimate to use the Talmud to illustrate the principle of Halachah as accepted in the New Testament period, as also for the periods before and after; but it would not be safe to infer that some particular definition, propounded by Akiba or Judah the Holy, was already regarded as Halachah, and taken for a rule of conduct by the contemporaries of Hillel and Shammai. Now, with regard to the Haggadah, the case is somewhat different, because, as has been already explained, no uniformity of belief was required, while uniformity of practice was required. But, allowing for that difference, what was said about the use of the later literature in regard to the Halachah applies also to its use in regard to the Haggadah. For here, also, there is an element which does not change, or not to any great extent, over a period which includes that of the New Testament and a considerable time before and after. That element is the general Pharisaic belief about God, Israel, and the world, about man's relation to God and to his fellow-men, about virtues, vices, the nature of sin, the function of prayer, and so on. What the Haggadah did was to teach this, illustrate it in all manner of ways, and present it in every possible aspect, but not in any great degree to modify it. Indeed, I think hardly to modify it at all. There is, in Pharisaism, no such progressive development of doctrine as there is in Christianity. Of course there could not be, in the nature of things, a Pharisaic Christology. But there was no progressive doctrine of a Messiah, nor of the Torah, nor of the resurrection of the dead, nor, I think, of any of the main subjects of belief. There were general ideas commonly held upon these subjects, beliefs upon which there was substantial agreement, and no thought of challenge. And the Haggadah was the means by which this general body of belief was continually illustrated and illumined, so that it might have ever renewed power to refresh the soul. Just as the Halachah was the detailed application of Torah to conduct, on its practical side, as the doing of the divine will, so the Haggadah was the detailed application of Torah to the spiritual life generally, so that the light which God had given might be shed over the "things which are eternal."

I proceed to sketch out what I take to be the general beliefs of the Pharisees which form the background, or the substratum, of the Haggadah, so far as I have been able to make it out. Afterwards I will give some Haggadic illustrations upon particular points. I purposely do not attempt a systematic arrangement, because the Pharisees themselves did not.

The object of worship is God—one, and undivided. He is the Creator of the world and of everything in it; and no other being shared with Him in that work. He does what He will; but His will is always just. His providence supplies the wants of His creatures. He is good, kind, and merciful.

It is the duty of man to obey Him. He has made known His will; He rewards those who fulfil His command, and punishes those who disobey. He has made all the human race; but Israel stands in a special relation to Him, because only Israel is bound to Him by a covenant. The Torah was offered to the other nations, but they would not have it. They are therefore outside the range of God's favour. They can only come within it by learning from Israel the Torah. There are, nevertheless, good men amongst the other nations.

It is the privilege of Israel to have been found worthy to receive the Torah, and his highest aim is to fulfil it, not only by doing what it sets before him as the divine will, but by taking to heart all that it teaches him concerning sacred things.

The Pharisee believed himself to be under the immediate care of God. Nothing happens to him except by the divine permission. God sees, and knows all that he does and all that he is going to do. Nevertheless, his will is free. He is not compelled either to obey or to disobey. If he obeys, God is pleased with him. If he disobeys, God is angry with him. Reward will follow in the former case, punishment in the latter. If he has sinned, repentance will make his peace with God. Forgiveness is never refused to the penitent. He can always pray to God, and God will always hear him.

It is his duty to be kind towards his fellow-men, "especially towards them which are of the household of the faith"—namely, Israel. He must not wrong anyone, whether Jew or Gentile. He must especially do acts of charity towards the poor and the suffering. He must not live an idle life; and in all that he does he must serve God.