Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 043

Tuesday, November 29 2005

• Re: "Es" lerabos
• Re: TIDE
• RE: TIDE and TuM
• Re: TIDE
• TIDE
• Re: "Es" lerabos
• Re: Rishonim and Chazal (was One Opinion)

In a message dated 11/25/05 6:58:33am EST, micha@aishdas.org writes:
> This grew from a claim of mine that "es" isn't normally superfluous. It's
> a necessary feature of a grammar that allows a wide variety of word orders
> that objects be distinguished from subjects through the use of an article
> ("es/eis"), or conjugation

Please see <http://aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/32middos.pdf> from Midrash
Ta'noim with the Pirush of the author of "Pirusg MaHarZV" on Midrash
Rabba), who concurs with the argument that they are allways extra, there
are other sources as well, will BL"N elaborate when I have more time.

Kol  Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

On Tue, Nov 29, 2005 at 12:35:02AM -0500, S & R Coffer wrote:
: Torah Im Derech Eretz is a phrase coined by Chazal and can have 4
: different connotations, 3 of which RSRH had absolutely no hand in
: inventing.

: 1) Derech Eretz Kadma LaTorah (or Im Ein Derech Eretz, Ein Torah) - The
: idea that derech eretz (DE) is a prerequisite to Torah such that if a
: person has Torah, he must have derech eretz. DE in this context refers
: to proper behaviour and attitudes towards Hashem and towards man that
: can be acquired even without the Torah....

Towards man, yes. But where is a maqor that DE refers to behavior toward
HQBH?

: 2) Yafeh Torah Im Derech Eretz - Being mifarnes es atzmo u'vney beiso...

Where do you get that DE here means parnasah? That would be "im ein
qemach, ein Torah", a different mishnah in Pirqei Avos.

Leshitas RSRH, both uses of DE are the same. As already discussed,
RSRH's TIDE implied a humanism.

: 3) Im Yomar Licha Adam Yesh Chochma BaGoyim, Tamin - for short, Torah
: Umadah (not the movement)....

Not at all. Nor relevent to TIDE. Chokhmah bagoyim ta'amin means that
you can rely on their observations. In context, that they may actually
know the gestation period od a snake better than we do. It's a statement
about using non-Jewish sources. How does that imply anything about the
value of secular knowledge?

: 4) TIDE and RSRH - When attempting to present a short synopsis of this
: movement, I encountered a major obstacle....

 From this point onward you make statements without providing any basis
at all.

[Wikipedia entry snipped.]
: Now, there are several possible responses that can arise when considering
: the above presentation....

Assuming wikipedia grasped the primary sources correctly....

...
: The third attitude is mine. I wish to make a reconciliation between the
: above two approaches and claim that RSRH, while really promoting the
: above-mentioned philosophy, would not necessarily have advanced it in
: a non-modern world and thus, in the times of Mashiach, for instance,
: where modernity's primary purpose will be to serve as a facilitator
: for klal yisrael, RSRH would dispense with his approach and adopt the
: Rambam's approach at the end of Hilchos Milachim.

But this is simply what you want RSRH to say, with no actual basis in
anything he (or wikipedia) actually wrote! So when a half dozen people
post how this sentiment runs counter to the ideas dripping off many many
pages of RSRH's writings, your reply simply is to repeat your imposing
your desired position on his work.

(Many of our debates appear this way from this end. Such as our
interminable debate on what REED says about 6 yemei bereishis. When
he writes that time had "no shortness and no length" and invokes it
to explain how the Ramban identifies the days with the subsequent
millenia NOT AS A REMEZ, he wasn't writing about time that lacks
measurability? That Adam saw all of history (from one end to the other)
with a metaphor of not being constricted by a whole in the in the paper
isn't a mashal for time sans human limitation not having a "flow"? No
matter how many times we went back and forth on this, you insist that
my citations -- which just happen to prove RAC's, one of the mevi'ei
la'or's, understanding -- are irrelevent and neither RAC nor I could
read the essay as well as you. So, the debates read like a habit of
simply reading your prejudice into sources, and far too many Avodah
discussions this year simply then revolve around people trying to prove
to you that the book in question actually says what it says. I find the
exercise frustrating, and as someone from a long line of hypertensives,
perhaps I would be better off resisting the temptation in the future.)

: There is a fourth attitude. Not only did RSRH not mean to promote the
: above presentation as a davar kavua, even category #3 (Torah and making a
: living) was not mankind's ultimate goal...

And again, not in RSRH anywhere. Besides, see his take on ki mTzion
teitzei Torah and what is means to be an or laGoyim. RSRH sets TIDE as
part of the messianic future.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha@aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
Fax: (270) 514-1507

S & R Coffer <rivkyc@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On November 16, 2005, RYGB wrote:
>> You commit a fundamental error. TIDE is not about integration into
>> gentil culture. In fact, I do not even think TuM is about that - except
>> perhaps in its most extreme manifestations.

> Great. If this is true, we have no dispute. However, your opinion
> regarding TIDE is far from the common consensus, especially amongst
> adherents of TuM (center to left) and other MO yidden.

For the record, TuM is not about integration into the gentile culture. It
is about utilizing the best of it, which does not contradict the
Halacha. It is about enjoying and renewing oneself, ...about adhering
to the Torah dictum: Mekadesh Atzmechem B'Ma SheMutar Lach.

Anyone who says that TuM is about integrating into the gentile culture
does not understand TuM at all. That many in MO mistakenly believe that
tro be the goal, is a function of both their ignorance and their focus on
the M instead of the O. To many (...probably most)Modern Orthodox Jews
it is a life-style choice. To my great dismay most of practitioners of
MO are of this mindset but it is not the definition of TuM at all... just
a manifestation of that ignorance.

That is why I like to identify them with the label MO-Lite.

HM

In Avodah V16 #42 dated 11/29/2005  R' Simcha Coffer writes:
> Torah Im Derech Eretz is a phrase coined by Chazal and can have  4
> different connotations, 3 of which RSRH had absolutely no hand  in
> inventing

RSRH invented NOTHING -- he only tried to give the classic Jewish
understanding of Torah the best possible formulation in the clearest,
most lucid and most attractive language he could. He did NOT think of
himself as inventing anything new -- he saw himself as putting old wine
in new bottles -- explaining timeless Torah in a way that would capture
the hearts of his readers.

The tension between engagement in the world and separation from the
world is implicit in ALL the classic sources since the beginning --
you will find it even in Bereishis, in the life of Avraham Avinu.
You will find it in the Mishna and Gemara and numerous seforim.

Hirsch only emphasized and clarified one side of that classic tension.
And BTW his cultural and intellectual openness -- which he absolutely
believed to be normative, classical Judaism -- went hand-in-hand with
his policy of austritt, complete institutional separation from any
organization giving authority or credibility to Reform or to any other
non-Torah source of Jewish identity.

He emphasized one side of that classic divide -- the side more needed
for his generation (and for ours) -- but did not neglect the other side,
either. If you read his commentary on Chumah carefully week by week,
you will find a delicately balanced hashkafa that gives due weight to both
the separateness of the Jew and the engagement of the Jew in the world.

>>A common consensus seemed to be lacking  regarding TIDE

I gave a very brief, thumbnail list of the main themes of TIDE in
the Jewish Action article I wrote about my father zt'l. Please see
<http://www.ou.org/publications/ja/5763/5763winter/WHOWILLC.PDF>.

> The second attitude is to embrace the above paragraph and adopt it
> as your general Weltanschauung on life. Essentially, many of the TuM
> adherents have done just that as have the overwhelming majority of
> MO Jews

I now bitterly regret that I wrote so much about TuM vs TIDE on Areivim
-- and that you do not read Areivim! I wish I had posted that material
on Avodah where posts are archived and publicly accessible. B"N I will
some day re-write some of what I wrote there, but have no time now.

All that I want to say right now is that TuM is widely considered by
TIDE adherents to be a distortion of TIDE. Some would say that TuM is
a philosophy that has nothing to do with TIDE. Please do not conflate
the two.

> The third attitude is mine. I wish to make a reconciliation between
> the above two approaches and claim that RSRH, while really promoting
> the above-mentioned philosophy, would not necessarily have advanced it
> in a non-modern world

No, he believed that what he was teaching and writing applied to Jews
in every country in every country and was exactly what the Torah had
always taught.

> There is a fourth attitude. Not only did RSRH not mean to promote
> the above presentation as a davar kavua, even category #3 (Torah and
> making a living) was not mankind's ultimate goal.

The belief that Torah learning is the ultimate goal does NOT preclude
engagement in secular studies OR in earning a living. Just please look
at the Tannaim and the Amoraim -- at the vast secular learning they had
-- the many languages they knew -- and the ways they earned a living!
Hirsch certainly /did/ consider Torah learning to be the ultimate goal
of every Torah Jew. He also saw the whole Klal as one holy enterprise --
in which, ideally, some people would be learning full time while others
would be kovea ittim and working and supporting those who were learning.
That vision DOES promote Torah learning as the ultimate goal of Klal
Yisrael.

By no means would he have agreed with the current yeshivish attitude
that everyone lechatchila should avoid working for a living -- and that
only failures
 and dropouts from "real Torah" should go to work for a living. His model
of Yiddishkeit was the 12-tribes model. Or you could call it the Three
Musketeers model: All for one and one for all.

He most certainly would not have shared the disdain some yeshivaleit
feel for baalei batim. He would not have considered tomchei Torah to
be dropouts and failures.

And it goes without saying that he did not share the mild contempt that
many baalei batim seem to feel for talmidei chachamim who do not earn
their own bread. He had the most tremendous yiras Shamayim and respect
for the gedolim and talmidei chachamim of Eastern Europe -- even though
they followed the other path in Torah, the path that rejected engagement
with the world. Never did he allow philosophical disagreements to
cloud the reverence and respect he felt for talmidei chachamim.

In G-d's army there are many regiments, and we are all engaged in a
holy enterprise.

>>I have had several discussions with TIDE/TuM people

Please, again, please do not put TuM and TIDE people in the same
category, the differences are many -- B"N to be discussed. TuM has a
school and a community, both its virtues and failings are clear to see.
TIDE today has no community and no school (Breuer's has deviated well
to the right) -- only yechidim. Nevertheless, even if they consciously
reject TIDE philosophically, the entire black hat world of America
lives a TIDE life and gives its kids a TIDE chinuch. I wrote about
this at length on Areivim, B"N will post more here one day.

>  the ultimate goal is to immerse oneself in Torah and eschew any  involvement
> in DE (parnasah) just like RSBY and therefore the obvious resolution
> is to say, just like R' Chaim Volozhiner says in Nefesh haChaim (1:8),
> that TIDE, even as applies to making a parnasah, is only secondary to
> learning full-time....

When the Gemara concludes that "harbeh asu keRabbi Shimon bar Yochai
velo alsa beyadam" it makes a value statement -- that his derech is NOT
the ideal, except for a very few yechidim. And those who abide by the
alternative vision are the majority, the Torah norm, what Hashem wants,
and in no way second class, failures or dropouts.

Remember what happened when he came out of the cave -- and burnt whatever
he looked at? A bas kol said, "Do you want to destroy My world?!
Go back to your cave."

This was not his reward for being so much holier than everyone else!
It was a lesson to him -- that Hashem had a plan for His world.

The mal'achim told Hashem not to give the Torah to human beings, and
what did He answer? The Torah is for /human beings/ -- people who
have parents, spouses, children, fields, homes, jobs, money, property,
inter-human dealings. The Torah is not for angels. The ideal of a
Torah Jew is a perfected human being living in the world and keeping
all the mitzvos -- not a person who is so separated from the world that
he burns people up with his gaze.

Which is not to gainsay that we also need those yechidei segulah who /are/
separated from the world. But that is not the ideal for the whole klal.

To repeat:

In G-d's army there are many regiments, and we are all engaged in a holy  
enterprise.  

 -Toby  Katz
=============

At 12:50 PM 11/29/2005, you wrote:
>Torah Im Derech Eretz is a phrase coined by Chazal and can have 4
>different connotations, 3 of which RSRH had absolutely no hand in
>inventing.

IMO a very good source to use in order to understand what RSRH meant by
TIDE are the footnotes to the Nineteen Letters that Rabbi Joseph Elias
put together. I personally found his notes and the extensive quotes from
the writings of RSRH eye opening.

Yitzchok Levine

In a message dated 11/25/05 6:58:33am EST, micha@aishdas.org writes:
> This grew from a claim of mine that "es" isn't normally superfluous. It's
> a necessary feature of a grammar that allows a wide variety of word orders
> that objects be distinguished from subjects through the use of an article
> ("es/eis"), or conjugation

Please see <http://aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/32middos.pdf> from Midrash
Ta'noim with the Pirush of the author of "Pirusg MaHarZV" on Midrash
Rabba), who concurs with the argument that they are allways extra, there
are other sources as well, will BL"N elaborate when I have more time.

Kol  Tuv,
Yitzchok Zirkind

S & R Coffer wrote:
>On November 27, 2005 Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
>>Jonathan Ostroff wrote:
>>>[2] The Rishonim believe that Peshat is a legitimate derech fully
>>>authorized by Chazal, even where the Peshat is not only different from
>>>the Derush, but even asserts what appears to be the opposite. In this
>>>case, the Rishon merely reveals one of the Shivim Panim of Torah given
>>>to Moshe Rabbenu at Har Sinai.

>>View #2 above represents a new type of rational for the reality that
>>Rishonim sometimes rejected the views of Chazal. From my research this
>>distinction was first mentioned by the Maharal....

>Actually, the Ramban states this approach openly in parshas Noach,
>(8:4) when diverging from an aggadas Chazal in BR. If you read the
>Ramban closely you will notice that 1) the Ramban feels like he needs
>to take rishus from Rashi to be miyashev the pasuk al pi pishuto when
>it apparently conflicts with a Medrash aggada 2) he mentions that Rashi
>had a right to do so because of shiviim panim latorah 3) there are many
>"medrashim chalukim" amongst Chazal themselves...

Ramban is not utilizing View #2. View #2 requires that there be an 
apparent conflict between chazal and the rishon which is reconciled by 
saying that chazal is medrash while the rishon represents pshat. There 
is no such thing is this Ramban. Ramban is dealing with a medrash 
(quoted below) which based on certain assumption concludes that the Ark 
came to rest on the 17th of **Sivan**. Ramban raises objections such as 
the fact that the Ark would have sunk if it was submerged as deeply as 
the medrash describes. In other words he rejects the validity of a 
statement of chazal based upon his scientific knowledge. He does not say 
that science is psaht and the medrash is derech drash. He does initially 
say that according to pshat the Ark would have rested on the 17th of 
**Iyar** - not Sivan. But then he says that the correct explanation 
[i.e., he is rejecting the medrash] the Ark in fact came to rest on the 
17th of **Nisan**.
In addition his statement regarding Rashi - is not taking permission 
from Rashi. He is simply speaking in a very respectful tone saying just 
as Rashi can produce an analysis which differs from a particular medrash 
so can he. A similar type of statement is found in the Ba'al HaMeor to 
justify his rejection of the Rif.

What can be taken from the Ramban is that 1) where a statement is based 
upon deduction rather than mesora - one can disagree with it if the 
premises are wrong. This would explain also his rejection of Seder Olam 
regarding the length of the Egyptian Exile since it was based upon 
deduction. 2) Where Chazal make an assertion of scientific fact which is 
known to be false through empirical investigation - we can not only 
reject the statement but also the deduction arrived by assuming it to be 
true. 3) Where there is a dispute amongst chazal concerning a historic 
event - that indicates that there is no clear mesorah and one can offer 
an alternative. It is not necessary to pick one of the statements of 
Chazal. An occurrence of this principle is found in the Abarbanel's 
discussion of Bava Basra (14-15). Rav Tzadok attacks the Abarbanel and 
says that one can not offer an alternative not mentioned in Chazal. 
Similarly the Maharal attacks the Ramban for making interpretations not 
found in chazal. 4) Ramban is not saying that he is only offering pshat 
to complement the drash of Chazal. He is saying that there is a correct 
understanding which he presents and which contradicts the medrash.

In sum Ramban is not utilzing view #2. He is rejecting the conclusions 
of the medrash. He is not offering an explanation of pshat which 
complements the drash.

----------------------------------------
Soncino Translation
*Bereishis Rabbah (33:7):*

7. AND HE SENT FORTH THE DOVE, AND SHE RETURNED NOT AGAIN TO HIM ANY MORE,
AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE SIX HUNDRED AND FIRST YEAR, IN THE FIRST MONTH,
THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH. We learned: The judgment of the generation
of the Flood lasted twelve months.1 How is this deduced? (i) In the six
hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth
day of the month... the windows of heaven were opened (Gen. VII, 11);
and it is written, (ii) And the rain was upon the earth forty days and
forty nights (ib. 12): this embraces the rest of Marheshwan and Kislew;
(iii) And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days
(ib. 24): this covers Tebeth, Shebat, Adar, Nisan, and Iyar; (iv) And
the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, upon the
mountains of Ararat (ib. VIII, 4): that means Siwan, the seventh month
from the descent of the rain. For sixteen days the water diminished at
the rate of a cubit per four days, which is one and a half handbreadths
per day. You may thus infer that the Ark was eleven cubits in the water,
and it all drained off in sixty days. Thus you read, And the waters
decreased continually until the tenth months (ib. 5): that is Ab, the
tenth from the descent of the rain.

____________________
*R' Chavel translation*
*Ramban (Bereishis 8:4):*

* *

4. AND THE ARK RESTED IN THE SEVENTH MONTH, ON THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE
MONTH. Rashi wrote: "From here you may infer that the ark was submerged
in the water to a depth of eleven cubits." This he wrote on the basis
of the calculation written in his commentaries, and it is so found in
Bereshith Rabbah. But since in certain places Rashi minutely examines
Midrashic traditions and for the same verses also takes the trouble to
explain the simple meanings of Scripture, he has thus given us permission
to do likewise for there are seventy ways of interpreting the Torah, and
there are many differing Midrashim among the words of the Sages. And so
I say that this calculation which they have mentioned does not fit into
the language of Scripture unless we bear with that which explains And the
ark rested in the seventh month as referring to that day mentioned above
[in Verses 2-3] when the rain was withheld and the waters receded from the
earth and decreased continually. [This Interpretation of the seventh month
is] unlike the counting of the second month mentioned in the beginning
of the section, [which Rashi explains there as being "the second month"
of the creation calendar], and unlike the counting stated at the end
of the section [in Verse 13: in the first month, which Rashi similarly
explains as being "the first month" of the creation calendar]! And how is
it possible that in the second verse Scripture should immediately retract
[from using the withholding of the rain as a reference point for counting]
and state, until the tenth month,113 and proceed to another reference
point, counting it, as Rashi explains, as the tenth month with reference
to the coming of the rains! The evidence Rashi brings from the submergence
of the ark in the waters is no proof for he attributes an equal decrease
of water to each of the days -- namely, a cubit every four days -- and
it is known in nature concerning the decrease of water that a great river
which decreases at first a cubit every four days will at the end decrease
four cubits in a day. Thus according to this calculation of Rashi, on
the first day of the month of Ab the tops of the mountains were seen,
and on the first day of Tishri the earth dried. Thus in sixty days the
waters decreased the entire height of the high mountains consisting
of many thousands of cubits, [surely a greater rate than four cubits a
day, as Rashi would have it]! Besides, when Noah sent forth the dove on
the seventeenth day of the month of Ellul, the waters were yet on the
face of the entire earth, and the trees were covered, and in a matter
of twelve days the whole earth dried! And by way of reason, if the ark
was submerged in the waters eleven cubits, that being more than a third
of its height [which was thirty cubits], it would have sunk because it
was wide at the bottom and finished to a cubit at the top, contrary to
the structure of ships, and there was also in it great weight!

*From the simple interpretation of Scripture it appears that the hundred 
and fifty days mentioned in connection with the prevailing of the waters 
include the forty days of the coming down of the rains since the main 
increase and prevailing of the waters took place during these days.* 
*Thus the waters began decreasing on the seventeenth day of Nisan, and 
thirty days later -- the seventeenth day of the month **Iyar,** which was 
the seventh month from the time the rain began to fall -- the ark rested 
upon the mountains of Ararat. Seventy-three days later, on the first of 
Ab, which was the tenth month from the time the rain began to fall, the 
tops of the mountains were seen. We have thus made a small correction in 
the interpretation of the language of Scripture, [namely, that all 
counting begins from the time the rain began to fall].

*But the correct interpretation appears to me to be that*. The hundred
and fifty days 121 were from the seventeenth day of the second month,
namely, the month of Marcheshvan, to the seventeenth day of the seventh
month, namely, the month of **Nisan**, and that was the day when the
ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.

>>                                               One would think in the
>>700 year period that the various commentaries of the rishonim have been
>>known that there would be copious examples of this explanation - but I
>>couldn't find them.

>In addition to the hasagos Ramban, the Rambam in pirush mishnayos is
>another example of a Rishon that states that we cannot reject maamarei
>Chazal out of hand. The drashos haRan states the same. And so does the
>Rashbam (brought down in JSO's post) and many other rishonim. Explanation
>#2 is thus the only rational reconciliation for the phenomenon of Rishonim
>sometimes disagreeing with Chazal.

***Nobody is saying one can reject a statement of chazal out of hand.***

But rishonim did reject views that were not based on a clear mesorah when
they felt the statement in chazal was wrong. It has nothing to do with
pshat versus drash. Rambam - even though he stated that one needs to be
highly respectful of chazal - rejected their views on astrology as did the
Meiri. The modern view as presented by Rav Dessler & the Leshem is that
everything that chazal said is true and can not be rejected. This was not
the view of the Rishonim. Thus explanation #2 is not "the only rational
reconciliation for the phenomenon of Rishonim sometimes disagreeing with
Chazal". Sometimes Rishonim in fact rejected the statements of chazal.

Daniel Eidensohn

*********************


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