HAGGADAH. In the Jewish (Talmudic) interpreta tion of the text of Scripture a clear distinction is made between two methods of exposition, one of which is called Haggadah, and the other Halakah. Haggadah means literally " telling " or " narration "; Halakah means " rule" or " binding law." The one method was legalistic and casuistic, the other illustrative and homi letical. The term Haggadah " acquired an extended significance covering the whole field of the non-balakic part of the old Rabbinical literature, all that is spiritual and homiletical as well as all that is merely illustrative, such as stories and legends of biblical and post-biblical heroes and saints, and folklore generally." Halakah embraces " all that belongs to the strictly legal or ritual element in Scripture, or can be deduced therefrom, in cluding discussions of such points " (Oesterley and Box). It also covers usages, customs, ordinances and decrees which have little or no Scriptural authority. Haggadah became a special kind of oratory in the synagogue. " The Haggadah, which is intended to bring heaven down to the congregation, and also to lift man up to heaven, appears in this office toth as the glorification of God and as the comfort of Israel. Hence religious truths, moral maxims, discussions concerning divine retribution, the inculcation of the laws which attest Israel's nationality, descriptions of its past and future greatness, scenes and legends from Jewish history, comparisons between the divine and Jewish institutions, praises of the Holy Land, encouraging stories, and comforting reflections of all kinds form the most important subjects of these dis courses " (L. Zunz, quoted by Oesterley and Box). In
course of time thirteen rules of Halakah and thirty-two rules of Haggadah were elaborated. Wogue (quoted by C. A. Briggs) sums these up. " These forty-five rules may all be reduced to two fundamental considerations. (1) Nothing is fortuitous, arbitrary, or indifferent in the Word of God. Pleonasm, ellipsis, grammatical anomaly, transposition of words or facts, everything is calculated, everything has its end and would teach us something. The casual, the approximate, the insignificant and incon sequential flower of rhetoric, all that belongs to the setting in human language, are strange to the severe pre cision of Biblical language. (2) As the image of its author, who is one by Himself and manifold in His manifestations, the Bible often conceals in a single word a crowd of thoughts; many a phrase, which appears to express a simple and single idea, is susceptible of diverse senses and numberless interpretations independent of the fundamental difference between literal exegesis and free exegesis, in short, as the Talmud says, after the Bible itself, the divine word is like fire which divides itself into a thousand sparks, or a rock which breaks into number less fragments under the hammer that attacks it. These two points of view, I repeat, are the soul of the Midrash in general; the latter above all serves as the common basis of the Halakah and Haggadah, and it explains, better than any other theory, the long domination of the midrash exegesis in the synagogue." See C. A. Briggs. Intr.; W. O. E. Oesterley and G. H. Box.