This is what happens when Arizal takes mushrooms and ends up in a Slack channel with Terry Pratchett and a bitter yeshiva dropout. I laughed, winced, and felt the amudei oilam jiggle. Respect!
I do wonder if those gemaras (of boiling waste and semen) were originally intended to be humorous biting satire which were then taking literally.
Keep in mind these gemaras were written during tremendous Christian persecution as well. Id like to think Chazal would be horrified to apply those gemaras as literal lessons to Jews (like the last Tznius story, which you referenced and is sick and demented).
Little quibble, I would describe this specific statement and polemical or rhetorical, not metaphorical, but I agree it was not necessarily intended literally. (However in general I do think Chazal's description of heaven and hell were often meant literally and can be categorized as a rabbinic cosmogony in the same vein as early Christian or Zoroastrian descriptions.)
They were obviously not meant to be taken literally (I mean how in heaven do you actually place a soul inside a pot, and to what temperature must you then raise that soul for it to begin to experience pain from the heat); most of the writings in midrash and aggadda are not (that's almost the literal meaning of those two words); nevertheless, this post is well put together and creative, and also connects dots in a thoughtful way that goes beyond mere cuteness and mockery.
I would actually push back on that - it has been a few years since I've looked at this, but the ramban in shar hagimul actually discuss this point in depth and marshals a number of points indicating that it is literal.
Firstly, the gemara in mesechtas Shabbos draws a number of halachic ramifications from the fact that the fires in gehenom are real - The gamara assumes that the hot springs of teveryah for heated from the underground fires of Gehenom and there are issues regarding heating food in those springs.
Secondly, the ramban points out that it doesn't make sense to say that these depictions are not literal considering the fact that chazal Go into incredible depth mapping out the exact dimensions etc inside each level of hell. None of these technical discussions would make much sense if they were all just non-literal metaphors.
Thirdly, the gemara quite literally tries to map the temperature of the fire in gehenom (it is 60 times hotter than regular fire, which is 60 times hotter then...)
Iirc, The ramban addresses your issue and says that god transforms the soul into some alerted state of matter that is susceptible to being burned, or something along the those lines.
This might all sound weird to you, but don't shoot the messenger. I took this stuff super seriously at the time when I was learning it.
I embarrassingly just searched Sha'ar Hagemul for צואה רותחת and could not find it.
In any case, even if some ideas are taken literally in some cases or by some authorities or to varying degrees, doesn't contradict my point, which is that in my own opinion much of midrash and aggadah were not originally meant literally, notwithstanding that over the ages parts may have been interpreted that way by some.
Of course some of the ideas about gehinom and she'ol as a place underground that's very hot may have been meant literally; on the other hand something like "60 times hotter" may itself not necessarily have been meant literally. These things would need a careful case-by-case analysis.
But in general I think a lot of it is less literal than some people think it is -- there was a deep tradition of metaphorical teaching and ideated storytelling that was self-understood and taken for granted without explication in the ancient world, differently from how logic and historicity and record-taking and factual-felicitousness and fastidiousness and then even more scientific method-grounded black-and-white thinking developed in Western thought and writing over the ages to contemporary understanding today. That's all I'm saying; none of which goes to the point of your story which accurately addresses many people's contemporary perception of the whole thing, which is the whole point you're trying to make in the first place (I think).
I agree the it is a case by case thing ( the Ramban was talking generally about the descriptions in our mesorah of gehenom). My intuition (which is admittedly not informed by much academic study, but rather just yeshivia learning) is kind of the opposite of yours - I think that the world that chazal perceived, was full of magic and wonder. The story I wrote about wouldn't be strange to them, because the whole world had this sort of mystical, magic lens over it. They imagined that there were far off lands with rivers of tumbling rocks, demons, etc.
I don't know, that's just the vibe that I get.
That said, my larger theological point was trying to envision, and generally express my confusion, over how one gets from the starting point of the Derech hashem (God created the world to bestow goodness because he is the source of all good and desires to share it) and somehow ending up creating pots of boiling feces as described in chazal.
Impressive writing! A sample like this would likely get you into some excellent universities for further study. (I would avoid a lot of the ivies at the moment. Also, the Catholics -Notre Dame or Hillsdale- would likely label it as ‘heresy’, but one never knows)
"Thirdly, the gemara quite literally tries to map the temperature of the fire in gehenom (it is 60 times hotter than regular fire, which is 60 times hotter then...)"
Other lines of reasoning are good, but anything 60 times 60 is clearly allegorical.
The tznius story is from the Minchat Yehuda? Not sure the source though I've heard it a few times. Its definitely not chazal.
Brilliant writing.
Amazing post. Love the imagery
This is what happens when Arizal takes mushrooms and ends up in a Slack channel with Terry Pratchett and a bitter yeshiva dropout. I laughed, winced, and felt the amudei oilam jiggle. Respect!
I do wonder if those gemaras (of boiling waste and semen) were originally intended to be humorous biting satire which were then taking literally.
Keep in mind these gemaras were written during tremendous Christian persecution as well. Id like to think Chazal would be horrified to apply those gemaras as literal lessons to Jews (like the last Tznius story, which you referenced and is sick and demented).
Little quibble, I would describe this specific statement and polemical or rhetorical, not metaphorical, but I agree it was not necessarily intended literally. (However in general I do think Chazal's description of heaven and hell were often meant literally and can be categorized as a rabbinic cosmogony in the same vein as early Christian or Zoroastrian descriptions.)
They were obviously not meant to be taken literally (I mean how in heaven do you actually place a soul inside a pot, and to what temperature must you then raise that soul for it to begin to experience pain from the heat); most of the writings in midrash and aggadda are not (that's almost the literal meaning of those two words); nevertheless, this post is well put together and creative, and also connects dots in a thoughtful way that goes beyond mere cuteness and mockery.
I would actually push back on that - it has been a few years since I've looked at this, but the ramban in shar hagimul actually discuss this point in depth and marshals a number of points indicating that it is literal.
Firstly, the gemara in mesechtas Shabbos draws a number of halachic ramifications from the fact that the fires in gehenom are real - The gamara assumes that the hot springs of teveryah for heated from the underground fires of Gehenom and there are issues regarding heating food in those springs.
Secondly, the ramban points out that it doesn't make sense to say that these depictions are not literal considering the fact that chazal Go into incredible depth mapping out the exact dimensions etc inside each level of hell. None of these technical discussions would make much sense if they were all just non-literal metaphors.
Thirdly, the gemara quite literally tries to map the temperature of the fire in gehenom (it is 60 times hotter than regular fire, which is 60 times hotter then...)
Iirc, The ramban addresses your issue and says that god transforms the soul into some alerted state of matter that is susceptible to being burned, or something along the those lines.
This might all sound weird to you, but don't shoot the messenger. I took this stuff super seriously at the time when I was learning it.
I embarrassingly just searched Sha'ar Hagemul for צואה רותחת and could not find it.
In any case, even if some ideas are taken literally in some cases or by some authorities or to varying degrees, doesn't contradict my point, which is that in my own opinion much of midrash and aggadah were not originally meant literally, notwithstanding that over the ages parts may have been interpreted that way by some.
Of course some of the ideas about gehinom and she'ol as a place underground that's very hot may have been meant literally; on the other hand something like "60 times hotter" may itself not necessarily have been meant literally. These things would need a careful case-by-case analysis.
But in general I think a lot of it is less literal than some people think it is -- there was a deep tradition of metaphorical teaching and ideated storytelling that was self-understood and taken for granted without explication in the ancient world, differently from how logic and historicity and record-taking and factual-felicitousness and fastidiousness and then even more scientific method-grounded black-and-white thinking developed in Western thought and writing over the ages to contemporary understanding today. That's all I'm saying; none of which goes to the point of your story which accurately addresses many people's contemporary perception of the whole thing, which is the whole point you're trying to make in the first place (I think).
I agree the it is a case by case thing ( the Ramban was talking generally about the descriptions in our mesorah of gehenom). My intuition (which is admittedly not informed by much academic study, but rather just yeshivia learning) is kind of the opposite of yours - I think that the world that chazal perceived, was full of magic and wonder. The story I wrote about wouldn't be strange to them, because the whole world had this sort of mystical, magic lens over it. They imagined that there were far off lands with rivers of tumbling rocks, demons, etc.
I don't know, that's just the vibe that I get.
That said, my larger theological point was trying to envision, and generally express my confusion, over how one gets from the starting point of the Derech hashem (God created the world to bestow goodness because he is the source of all good and desires to share it) and somehow ending up creating pots of boiling feces as described in chazal.
Impressive writing! A sample like this would likely get you into some excellent universities for further study. (I would avoid a lot of the ivies at the moment. Also, the Catholics -Notre Dame or Hillsdale- would likely label it as ‘heresy’, but one never knows)
"Thirdly, the gemara quite literally tries to map the temperature of the fire in gehenom (it is 60 times hotter than regular fire, which is 60 times hotter then...)"
Other lines of reasoning are good, but anything 60 times 60 is clearly allegorical.
The tznius story is from the Minchat Yehuda? Not sure the source though I've heard it a few times. Its definitely not chazal.
This was the rambam's argument.
I read the story in the kav hayaashar. I don't remember his source.
*Ramban.
One way to check is to see how the classic commentaries understood them.
A good place to start is Shaar Hagemul of the Ramban.
Strong disagree.
The classic commentaries had a very different mindset than chazal. We know they took things literally that chazal meant metaphorically.
How can you "know" that?
Additionally, if the classic commentaries were totally "off", the concept of Mesora is down the drain.
Don't expect Ash to be the one defending the concept of mesorah.
Ramban lived 800 years after Rav Ashi in a wildly different society. In fact you live closer in time to Ramban than Ramban lived to the gemorrah.
Just because he was a long time ago doesn’t mean he had some sort of special insight into the Gemorah.
I personally agree with you, but in Orthodoxy the Talmud is ALWAYS understood through the lens of the Rishonim.