words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear” (Rev. 1:3). Reading the Scriptures is not the same as listening to God. To do the former is not necessarily to do the latter. Atheists can read Scripture. Note from the TABLE below the contrast between reading and oral-aural hearing:


TABLE


Reading Eyes Read marks on a page


A lone person with a book, writ- ten by someone miles away, or dead, or both.


The book is at the reader’s mer- cy. The book does not know if I am paying attention or not.


The reader initiates the process; the reader is in charge.


Images in life: the stereotype of the husband buried in the morning newspaper at break- fast, preferring to read scores of yesterday’s sports events, and opinions of columnists he will never meet, than to listen to the voice of the person who has just shared his bed, poured his cof- fee and fried his eggs, even though listening to that live voice promises love and hope, emotional depth and intellectu- al exploration far in excess of what he can gather information- ally from the New York Times.


Listening Ears Attend to the sound of a voice. An interpersonal, relational act.


Listener is required to be atten- tive to the speaker, at speaker’s mercy. The speaker knows if I am paying attention or not.


The speaker initiates the process; the speaker is in charge.


Images in life: All Israel assem- bled at the foot of Mt. Sinai as Moses addressed them…. A first century Pauline congregation gathered to hear the oral reading of a letter from the apostle Paul… A soldier standing at attention, listening to the commands of his drill sergeant…. Boy scouts around a campfire listening in rapt attention to a storyteller tell a ghost story…A family Passover seder dinner, in which the father animatedly tells, once again, the Great Story of our Freedom, the children ask questions, the sym- bolic foods are eaten, and the songs are sung.


(Adapted from Eugene H. Peterson, “Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity,” Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans: 1987).


Storytelling has always been part of the Jewish tradition. The Agga-


dah is a part of Judaism’s Oral Law in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism. Talmudic tractates, the Halachic rulings and mitzvot are legal and propositional in form. In contrast the Aggadic and Midrashic tradi- tion is largely in narrative form, or simply put: stories (historical anec- dotes, parables, homilies, folklore). According to well-received Jewish tradition, it was King Solomon


who, if not invented, popularized the parable. “The Torah until Solo- mon’s time,” commented Rabbi Nachman in the Agada, “was compa- rable to a labyrinth with a bewildering number of rooms. Once one entered there, one lost his way out. Then along came Solomon and invented the parable that has served as a ball of thread. When tied at the entrance to this labyrinth, it serves as a secure guide through all the winding, bewildering passages” (Ausubel: 1948:56).1 As the well-known maxim has it—“History is His Story.” God’s Master Story is the “Ariadne’s thread” (drawing from the Greek story here, as the rabbi did) that runs through the whole Bible. The Master


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There was once a poor old woman...she was well...ugly...very ugly... she had a bent back and hooked nose, her chin was covered with warts and pimples...her eyes bugged out, her mouth was crooked and her teeth broken. She dressed in old rags that smelled. No one would listen to what she said or even look at her. If they saw her they would run away...slam doors in her face. So she was very sad because all she wished for was some company, companionship. But no one would pay atten- tion to her or talk to her. So she wandered from place to place looking for friends.


She crossed a great desert and came to a city in the middle of the desert. She thought to herself, “Surely, I’ll find friends in this city. People in the desert know how hard life is and they’ll take pity on me and I’ll find a friend.” But, alas, this city was like all the rest ...people ran away and slammed doors, closed their shutters...no one would talk to her or listen to her. She became very upset. “Why go on? What’s the point? Life


CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 Jewish Voice Today | 11


Story begins in Genesis with Creation and covenant. Genesis 3:15 is the first announcement of the Master Story that finds fulfillment in Messi- ah. Genesis 12:1-3 makes the story more specific—the plan of redemp- tion will follow the historic thread of Abraham’s descendants. At the end of the thread, we see Messiah Yeshua establishes His Kingdom and puts everything to rights. This metanarrative2


is the frame into which all


the smaller stories fit. It also provides a hermeneutical key for interpret- ing other genre of Scripture, using the touchstone question: How does it follow the thread of God’s Master Story? Taking up the thought, Rabbi Nachman’s colleague, Rabbi Hanina said: “Until the time of Solomon the Torah could have been compared to a well full of refreshing water, but because of its extraordinary depth no one could get to the bottom. What was necessary was to find a rope long enough to tie to the bucket in order to bring up the water. Solomon made up this rope with his parables and thus enables everyone to reach to the profoundest depths of the well” (Ausubel: 1948:56). Modern Western preachers and teachers often think of stories as mere illustrations or “icing on the cake.” They think the real cake, or the substance is the more abstract, propositional truth in logical, linear, statement-of-fact form. Rabbi Hanina knew that stories were the rope that reaches to the profoundest depths of the well. As N.T. Wright has written, “Human life, then, can be seen as grounded in and constituted by the implicit or explicit stories which humans tell themselves and one another. … Stories are often regarded as a poor man’s substitute for the ‘real thing,’ which is to be found in some abstract truth, or statements about ‘bare facts.’” (The New Testa- ment and the People of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992:38).


The Power of Story Every person’s life is a story with plot twists and interesting charac-


ters. We learn vicariously through the truths we draw from a story that features real life situations similar to our own. A story can penetrate our imagination, conscience and emotions, touching us at a deep personal level.


Rabbi Jacob ben Wolf Kranz of Dubno, the “Dubner Maggid,” was a Lithuania-born preacher who lived from 1740 to 1804. Maggid is Hebrew for storyteller (from the same Hebrew root as “Aggadah” and “Haggadah”). A contemporary of the Vilna Gaon, the “Maggid” was famous for explaining Torah concepts by using a mashal or parable. He was once asked, “Why are stories so powerful?” His legendary reply was to tell the following story (below a modern re-telling):


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