On Interpreting "Miracle Stories" in the Talmud

Originally published in March 2013. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this blog post.

Artwork: Counterspell, by Zack Stella - or an abstract rendition of Choni ha'Maagal

On Interpreting "Miracle Stories" in the Talmud

The author of the Haggadah quotes the last Mishnah in the first chapter of Berachos:

R' Elazar ben Azaryah said: I am like a seventy-year-old man, yet I did not merit [to prove that] the Exodus from Egypt must be mentioned at night until Ben Zoma expounded it [from the verse], as it is stated: “So that you will remember the day of your departure from Mitzrayim all the days of your life” (Devarim 16:3). “The days of your life” indicates the days. “All the days of your life” indicates the nights. The Sages say: “The days of your life” indicates this world. “All the days of your life” comes to include the Messianic Era.

R' Elazar ben Azaryah's statement is peculiar. Why does he say, "I am like a seventy-year-old man" and not simply, "I am a seventy-year-old man"?

The Gemara (Berachos 27b-28a) addresses this question. R' Elazar ben Azaryah was being considered as a candidate for the office of nassi, the head of the Sanhedrin (Supreme Court). He was hesitant about accepting the position, so he consulted his wife. She expressed her concern about his youthful appearance. The Gemara states: 

She said to him: “You have no white hair.” He was eighteen years old that day, and a miracle was done for him and eighteen rows of hair [on his beard] turned white. That is why R. Elazar ben Azaryah said: “Behold I am like a seventy-year-old man,” and he did not say, "I am a seventy year old man."

Most people take the Gemara's account at face value: a miracle was done for R' Elazar ben Azaryah, and his beard turned white. There doesn't seem to be anything objectionable about the Gemara's explanation.

The Rambam [1] begs to differ. In his commentary on that Mishnah he writes: 

Regarding the statement of R’ Elazar ben Azaryah, “Behold, I am like a seventy-year-old man” He didn’t say, “I am seventy years old” because he wasn’t seventy years old; he was but a young lad. However, he exerted himself in his learning and reading, day and night, until his bodily powers weakened and aged, and he became like a seventy-year-old man. He brought old age upon himself intentionally, as it is stated in the Talmud. For this reason he said, “In spite of my tremendous effort and my learning with other wise men, I did not merit to discover the allusion in the Written Torah for the obligation to read the paragraph of tzitzis at night until Ben Zoma expounded it.”

Not only does the Rambam explain R' Elazar ben Azaryah's elderly appearance in an entirely naturalistic way, but he cites our Gemara as his source! Even though Chazal go out of their way to ascribe R' Elazar ben Azaryah's transformation to a miracle, the Rambam doesn't see this as a sufficient reason to abandon a naturalistic explanation. 

The question is: How can the Rambam (seemingly) ignore Chazal's words? It would be one thing if the Gemara merely described a wondrous transformation in R' Elazar ben Azaryah's appearance without explicitly using the term "miracle" - but the Gemara does use the term "miracle"! What gives the Rambam the right to ignore the Gemara's plain meaning?

This isn't the first time we've seen a Rishon interpret such an event naturalistically in the face of Chazal's assertion that a miracle was involved. Several years ago I wrote a dvar Torah about Yocheved's age when she gave birth to Moshe. The Gemara (Bava Basra 119b) explicitly states that Yocheved was 130 years old when she gave birth to Moshe, and that this childbirth involved a miracle. Nevertheless, the Ibn Ezra and Ralbag disregard the Gemara's statement and offer a naturalistic interpretation. They, like the Rambam, seem to ignore Chazal's express statement that a miracle was done for Yocheved. 

Ralbag [2] goes even further than this. He writes that Chazal only said that Yocheved's childbirth was a miracle “for the benefit of the masses, to establish in their hearts the power of Hashem’s ability to do miracles.” In other words, Ralbag maintains that even Chazal didn't believe that Yocheved miraculously gave birth at the age of 130. Nevertheless, Chazal taught that a miracle was done for Yocheved in order to underscore the fundamental belief in miracles. 

Some might object to the Ralbag's statement, saying: "How can the Ralbag maintain that Chazal didn't mean exactly what they said? How can he say that Chazal believed one thing, but taught something else in public? Since when do Chazal conceal their opinions from the masses?" ... and that's when the objections start to break down. Anyone who is familiar with the way that the Rishonim approach midrashim knows that Chazal write cryptically. There are thousands of midrashim in which Chazal said things which they didn't intend to be taken literally, or made statements which contain "secret ideas" that were not intended for the masses. 

Indeed, Rabbeinu Avraham ben ha'Rambam, in his essay on the drashos of Chazal [3], mentions "taking midrashic miracle stories literally" as an example of superficial approaches to the drashos of Chazal: 

[Those who study my essay on midrashim] will be saved from thinking that the [events recorded in midrashim involved] miraculous occurrences are like those which were done for the prophets, and that such miracles are done for every wise and pious person, and that there is no difference between the splitting of the sea for Moshe and the Jews who left Egypt or the parting of the Yarden for Elisha and Eliyahu, and the like. These conclusions are only necessary if you take these drashos literally, or based on a superficial reading.

R' Avraham ben ha'Rambam then goes on at length to demonstrate that Chazal used hyperbole in their midrashic teachings:

There are many incidents that actually happened but were exaggerated in the belief that no reasonable person would mistake their meaning. The Rabbis condoned the use of exaggeration, saying, "The Torah used overstatement, the prophets used overstatement, and the Sages used overstatement." 

The Torah used hyperbole, like in the verse, "Great cities fortified to the skies" (Deuteronomy 1:28). The prophets used hyperbole, like in the verse, "The people were playing flutes and rejoicing with great joy; the ground burst from their noise" (1 Melachim 1:40). The Sages exaggerated when they described the heap of ashes on the altar [saying that there were three hundred kor of ashes - an immense quantity - on the altar]; they exaggerated when they spoke of the golden vine [on which the people used to hang their gifts of gold for the Beis ha'Mikdash, saying that it took three hundred kohanim to collect those gifts]; and they exaggerated when they described the curtain that separated the Kodesh ha'Kodashim from the Sanctuary, [saying that it was so heavy that it took three hundred kohanim to immerse it in a mikveh] (Tamid 29a). 

These are just three examples in the Mishnah, but in the Gemara there are countless cases of exaggeration. To cite one example: Rabbah and R' Zeira had the Purim feast together. They became intoxicated, and Rabbah got up and slew R' Zeira. On the next day Rabbah prayed for R' Zeira and revived him (Megillah 7b). What it means is that Rabbah beat R' Zeira and wounded him so badly that R' Zeira was near death. The Gemara uses the phrase "he slew him" because the wound was life-threatening, or it might have been on the throat. And the word achyei [he revived him] means "he recovered." The term achyei is often used for that meaning. Many similar stories are found in the Talmud.

It is clear from these Rishonim that Chazal didn't intend for everything they wrote in their midrashim to be taken literally, and that they chose to formulate their teachings in this way for a variety of reasons. For instance Rambam states that one of the Sages in the Gemara "responded to his student incorrectly, in accordance with the student's inadequate understanding of the matter, as it is stated, 'Answer a fool according to his foolishness' (Mishlei 26:4)" (Introduction to Perek Chelek). 

Perhaps the most astounding example of this is provided by the Rashba. Rashba writes [4] that these drashos were often given in public. "[The Sages] would go on at length with beneficial, but the people would be sleeping. In order to wake them up, [the Sages] would say crazy things to shock them and rouse them from their sleep." He cites the following amusing example from Shir ha'Shirim Rabbah 1:3:

Rebbi was sitting and giving a drashah, and the congregation was dozing off; he wanted to wake them up, [so] he said: “There was one woman in Egypt who gave birth to 600,000 [babies] in a single pregnancy!” There was one student present whose name was Rebbi Yishmael b’Rebbi Yossi. He asked: “Who was she?” [Rebbi] responded: “This was Yocheved, who gave birth to Moshe, who was equal to 600,000 Jews!”

The upshot of all of this something that most of us have known all along: Chazal didn't intend for their all of their midrashic statements to be taken literally, and made many statements which were not meant to be accepted at face value. What we might not have realized is just how far to extend this principle. We might have thought that when it comes to midrashim like the story of R' Elazar ben Azaryah's beard, which appears to be a problem-free factual account of a miraculous event, we should accept it as literal truth. We see from the Rambam (et al.) that this is not necessarily the case. 

We've established that the Rambam "has a right" to dismiss a literal reading of Chazal's assertion that R' Elazar ben Azaryah's aging was the result of a miracle. One question remains: What prompted the Rambam to deviate from the plain pshat and take this naturalistic approach? 

The best answer to this question was given by the Rambam himself, in his Maamar Techiyas ha'Meisim [5]. The Rambam was faced with the task of defending his belief in the literal truth of techiyas ha'meisim (the resurrection of the dead). As a prelude to his explanation the Rambam provides a beautiful account of why he interprets so many other seemingly miraculous accounts in a naturalistic fashion: 

I will explain to you that which brought me to this approach, and that is that our aim and the aim of every intelligent person among the select few is opposite to the aim of the multitude of people. For the most cherished and beloved thing to the multitude of Torah-observant people, because of their ignorance, is to consider the Torah and human intellect to be two opposite poles. Everything which is incomprehensible to the intellect they consider to be a miracle. They flee from explaining something as a natural phenomenon whether it pertains to something recorded in the past, or in regard to something which is discernible at the present time, or whether it relates to something which is written will happen in the future. We, on the other hand, strive to reconcile the Torah with human intellect and regard everything in its natural light wherever possible, unless it is self-evident therefrom that it is of miraculous connotation and cannot be interpreted at all; then we are forced to say it is a miracle.

There you have it. According to the Rambam, the correct approach is to interpret everything as naturalistically as possible unless we are forced to interpret it as a miracle. 

It is reasonable to conclude that this is what led the Rambam to interpret the Gemara about R' Elazar ben Azaryah as he did. There are "miracle stories" in Gemara which we are forced to take literally, but this isn't one of them. The Rambam saw that R' Elazar ben Azaryah's aged appearance could be explained without making recourse to miracles. Since a naturalistic explanation was available to him, that is the explanation he preferred. 

It is also important to note that the Rambam's explanation is harmonious with the subject at hand. The Gemara was discussing R' Elazar ben Azaryah's qualifications for being appointed as nassi and the Mishnah was emphasizing R' Elazar ben Azaryah's superb chochmah. The Rambam's explanation - namely, that R' Elazar ben Azaryah devoted many years to intensive learning - completes the picture that these two sources aimed to paint. (Perhaps this also explains the strange detail added by the Gemara: that R' Elazar ben Azaryah was 18 years old, and 18 rows of hairs on his beard turned white - as if to say that he had fully devoted his number of years on this earth to perfecting his chochmah).

So next time you encounter a "miracle story" in the Talmud or midrashim, be sure to think twice. The words of Chazal are not always what they appear to be on the surface.

[1] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Commentary on the Mishnah: Berachos 1:9

[2] Rabbeinu Levi ben Gershom (Ralbag / Gersonides), Commentary on Sefer Shemos 1:7

[3] Rabbeinu Avraham ben ha'Rambam, Essay on Aggadah

[4] Rabbeinu Shlomo ben Aderet (Rashba), Commentary on the Aggadic portion of Berachos 54b

[5] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead