Reviewing: “The Aggadic Mindset II: How Talmudic Tales Shape the Jewish Outlook” by Rabbi Chaim and Binyamin Jachter. Cover artwork by Miriam Kaminetzky. Kol Torah Publications, 2025. 268 pages. ISBN: 9798312213317.
Up until the 1920s, there were Ein Yaakov Jews rather than Daf Yomi Jews. Ein Yaakov was a compilation of talmudic tales (aggadah) with commentary based on unique stories told by rishonim contained in the Babylonian Talmud. It was published in Salonika in 1515 and was studied, according to some, with the same level of seriousness as the Talmud itself. Halacha can and is derived from the lessons of the aggadah, as well as Gemara and Tanach.
The novel idea of Jews around the world studying the same blatt (page) of Gemara each day, known as the Daf Yomi, was not proposed by Rabbi Meir Shapiro until 1920, and didn’t gain worldwide popularity until 1923 and beyond. While Daf Yomi Jews may have replaced Ein Yaakov Jews in sheer numbers, the lessons of the aggadah and its relevance to our lives still prevail, and many Daf Yomi lomdans enjoy the taste of aggadah when it is included in the daf. We need not choose between the two.
Teaneck’s Rabbi Chaim Jachter, and his son Binyamin, would like to bring back the serious study of aggadic tales and share their up-to-the-moment relevance to today’s Jews. But even while encouraging its study, they themselves acknowledge there’s no guarantee that anyone will understand the meaning of every aggadic tale. In fact, quite a few tales included in the aggadah—the stories, mashals, parables and vignettes that are woven into the text of the Talmud—are, in fact, impossible to understand, or simply leave us scratching our metaphorical heads. However, says Rabbi Jachter and his son, in their second installment of writings in aggadah, that does not mean we are free from the attempt to understand them.
“The Aggadic Mindset II: How Talmudic Tales Shape the Jewish Outlook,” the Jachters’ newest effort, is the latest of the Jachter family’s prolific writings, the last 15 of which have been published in the last decade. In addition to his weekly column here in The Jewish Link, Rabbi Jachter is a community rabbi in Teaneck serving the members of Congregation Shaarei Orah. He is a posek for Teaneck-Bergenfield’s eruv and a sought-after consultant for many other eruvin nationwide. He is also a rebbe at Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC) and serves as a dayan on the Beth Din of Elizabeth. As if this were not an impressive-enough list of responsibilities, Rabbi Jachter is also one of the most prolific members of this and any rabbinic community, having published at least one book a year for the last decade and averaging two to three a year since the start of the pandemic in 2020. His topic range has included the first “Aggadic Mindset” book, along with a book about the bridging of Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions, and multiple books on halacha and Tanach. A frequent co-author is his son Binyamin Jachter.
While many aggadic tales shared and contextualized in the book are about the reasons for various traditions, including why Jews must take special care to give extra time for travel before Shabbos, why tefillin are referred to as dove’s wings, why we add a small amount of salt to our food, and the understanding of who Mashiach is and where he can be found, one of the most fascinating portions of the book is on family and marriage, in which Rabbi Jachter expounds on an aggadic tale as part of a tribute to his wife, Malca. An example: “Ketubot 63a tells the story of Rabi Akiva’s rise from being a simple shepherd to one of the greatest Torah teachers of the generation, all at the urging of his newlywed wife Rachel. Many rabbis marshal Rabi Akiva’s praise for his wife in this Gemara, ’sheli c’shelachem shela hee: My and your learning stems from her.’ Rachel not only kept her husband from sin but even propelled her husband’s rise to greatness. In Malca’s case, it is no exaggeration. She has kept me on the right path and propelled me to a level of accomplishment I never dreamed possible.”
Another instructive story in the same chapter speaks of a woman not to be trifled with, sort of a converse of the previous story, or how a marriage shouldn’t work rather than how it should. Bava Metzia 101b: “There was a certain man who purchased a boat laden with wine. He was unable to find a place to store it. He said to a certain woman: ‘Do you have a place to rent to me?’ She said to him ‘No.’ He was aware that she did own a suitable place so he went and betrothed her, and then she gave him a lease on the place for him to bring in his wine there. He went back to his home and wrote up a bill of divorce for her, which he then sent to her. Upon receiving the bill of divorce and realizing that the betrothal had been nothing more than a ruse, she went and hired porters, paying them from the wine itself, and instructed them to take the wine out of her place and put it on the road. Upon being presented with the case, Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said, paraphrasing Ovadyah 1:15: ‘Like he did, so shall be done to him, his repayment shall come back on his head;’ She was entitled to do as she did.”
From the chapter on family and marriage, one moves through a variety of chapters dealing with Satan, Torah life, Jewish community and on to a fascinating chapter (13) about various parts of the year that are discussed in the aggadah. One of the most current and important stories shared in the book involves Avodah Zarah 8a, which addresses the topic of light after the shortest day of the year, also known as the winter solstice. “When Adam HaRishon saw that the day was progressively diminishing … he said, ‘woe is me; perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and will ultimately return to the primordial state of chaos and disorder.
“Once dawn broke, he said, ‘Evidently the sun sets and night arrives and this is the order of the world.’ He arose and sacrificed a bull…”
While the lessons are manifold and multiple pagan holidays associated with darkness and light hold the origins of Avodah Zarah, the constancy of light after darkness is nevertheless a powerful lesson that Hashem shares with the Jewish world through this gemara. “Hashem embeds great light that emerges after a period of great darkness in the very fabric of creation. After the viciously evil Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Rav Asher Weiss publicly stated that something great will inevitably emerge. He noted that the Mishnah and Gemara emerged in the wake of the Churban. After the immense havoc wrought by the Spanish Inquisition came the Shulchan Aruch’s composition and the emergence of the Chachmei HaKaballah. After the Shoah came the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over part of Eretz Yisroel for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.
“However, the emergence of light after dark does not only depend on Hashem. The responsibility to bring it about devolves on us as well. Our responsibility is to add great light in response to the immense darkness,” Jachter wrote.
“The Aggadic Mindset II” is available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Aggadic-Mindset-II-Talmudic-Outlook/dp/B0DZ6RQH4M) and wherever fine Jewish books are sold.
Elizabeth Kratz is editor-in-chief of The Jewish Link.
