Mashal (allegory)
Biblical parable or allegory / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mashal (Hebrew: משל) is a short parable with a moral lesson or religious allegory, called a nimshal. Mashal is used also to designate other forms in rhetoric, such as the fable and apothegm. Talmud Scholar Daniel Boyarin has recently defined משל as a process of "exemplification," seeing it as the sine qua non of Talmudic hermeneutics.[1] He quotes Song of Songs Rabba: "until Solomon invented the משל, no one could understand Torah at all." The phenomenon has been compared to the more recent phenomenon of sampling in modern popular music, especially hip-hop.[2]
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