INTRODUCTION
13
accompaniment of Halachah ; both have the same
general purpose, viz., to teach a true service of God ;
but the one proceeds by way of direct command, and
rests upon divine authority, the other by way of
exhortation and explanation, with no other authority
than the wisdom and knowledge of the individual
teacher. This is said without forgetting the fact that
the great teachers of Haggadah were looked upon
with the deepest reverence, and their teaching re-
ceived with great deference. Moreover, the Hagga-
dah was considered to be contained in the Scripture,
and to be deducible thence by regular rules of infer-
ence. But nevertheless it is true that the teaching
and development of Haggadah was under no such
strict restraint as was required for Halachah. And
Haggadah served as the outlet for the creative ima-
gination of the Rabbinical mind, which could find no
scope in the severe logic of Halachah. The teacher
of Haggadah gave free rein to his thought ; his
object was edification, and he made use of everything
-history, legend, anecdote, fable, parable, speculation
upon every subject from the most sublime to the
most trivial-which might serve to teach some
religious lesson, and thereby develop religious char-
acter. The Haggadist made no scruple of altering
not merely the narrative but the text of Scripture,
for the sake of drawing out a religious or moral
lesson ; and where Scripture was silent, the Hagga-
dist freely invented incidents and traits of character
in regard to Scripture personages, not stopping short
of the Almighty Himself. Frequent appeal is made
to the example of non-biblical Fathers in Israel, and
it is to the Haggadah that we owe nearly all our
 |  |  |