Avodah Mailing List

Volume 16 : Number 058

Wednesday, December 14 2005

• Re: Rishonim and Chazal (was One Opinion)
• RE: Rishonim and Chazal (was One Opinion)
• cheese & honey
• Dovor Sheyesh Lo Mattirin
• Re: TIDE and TuM
• Re: Aggada & Rav Sherira Gaon
• Re: Plato (was Rambam on reinterpreting ma'aseh breshit)
• RE: Plato (was Rambam on reinterpreting ma'aseh breshit)
• Re: Plato (was Rambam on reinterpreting ma'aseh breshit)
• RE: Plato (was Rambam on reinterpreting ma'aseh breshit)
• Let's talk Tuna
• RAL Psak on Bracha for Seeing King
• Re: Length of Maaseh Breshis has no impact on halacha

R Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> Ramban also rejects the views of chazal concerning the length of the
> Egyptian exile. He is not saying from some perspective both views are
> correct. Similarly when talking about the rainbow. He does not say that
> the rainbow occurred first after the malbul like chazal say and that it
> also preexisted the malbul since the Greeks have shown it is a natural
> phenomenon. He says we are forced to accept the views of the Greek
> scientists that the rainbow always existed - and thus he is rejecting
> the view of chazal.

I'm sorry to harp on this point yet again, but...

This isn't an example of rejecting the view of Chazal. The consensus,
until our generation, is that aggadita is in a language of metaphor,
that what looks like historical statements are really the means of
conveying machashavah and mussar without unduly writing TSBP. (Not to
mention the extra richness one gains by using poetic language over a
straight telling.)

Thus, the Ramban is NOT rejecting the view of Chazal. He is rejecting
the historicity of the mashal. There is no indication that the Ramban
questions the nimshal, which is the thesis of the maamar.

And this is the nafqa mina people have asked me for, between simply saying
"rejecting a medrash" and being careful to say in full "rejecting the
medrash's depiction as literal history".

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
micha@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On December 7, 2005, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
> Once you acknowledge that the Ramban in rejecting view of the medrash -
> concerning the timing of historical events - you can not be saying that
> he is offering peshat versus the derasha of chazal. In addition he can
> not be offering an alternative view. This is in accord with Rashi Kesubos
> 57a. Eilu v'eliu does not apply to historical events.

Ramban's approach is also supported by Chazal (see pasuk hey and Shevel
there). That's why the Ramban in pasuk dalet mentions that there are
sometimes chilukey deos amongst Chazal themselves and therefore, in
an attempt to resolve the pesukim al pi the pashtus that the Ramban
understood, he felt justified in choosing one maamar over the other as
Rashi frequently does.

As far as eilu v'eilu (EV) goes, although I agree with you regarding the
parameters of EV, the Ramban *did* invoke EV just before he stated his
issues with Rashi's approach in pasuk dalet. So although it would seem
that this machlokes relates exclusively to the historicity of the mabul,
apparently there is more to it than that. If I wanted to be creative, I
could probably come up with an approach that resolves the contradiction
but it's not necessary because Ramban is aligned with another maamar
Chazal anyway. Thus, this example is not sufficient to illustrate
your point.

> When the Ramban rejects the view of chazal regarding the month the Ark
> came to rest - he can not be saying that the words of the medrash are
> true and that his are also. The Ark did not come to rest for the first
> time in two different months! Thus there is a problem of understanding
> how this introductory paragraph relates to what he actually is doing
> in his commentary. According to you he is following in the footsteps
> of Rashi - no more and no less - and is only offering an alternative
> reading. It is obvious from his words, however, that he is **rejecting**
> the conclusions of chazal. According to your understanding - how can
> he be saying what you are insisting he means and then turn around and
> reject the views of chazal in this medrash?!

I don't know but you can't deny that the Ramban does introduce his
counter-chazal approach by invoking 1) the idea that Rashi picks
and chooses maamarey Chazal that relate to pshat 2) sometimes Chazal
themselves argue 3) Elu v'elu.

If, like you claim, the Ramban felt that a carefully considered pshat
may be introduced into a pasuk despite running counter to Chazal, why
the whole prefatory hullabaloo? Your kasha is on the Ramban, not on
me. Besides, as I mentioned above, Ramban is indeed aligned with another
Medrash which seems to fit well with his prefatory comments about having
"rishus" from Rashi to pick and choose maamarim that are more closely
aligned with the pashut pshat in the pesukim.

> Ramban also rejects the views of chazal concerning the length of the
> Egyptian exile. He is not saying from some perspective both views are
> correct.

You got me there. Although, he does bemoan the fact that Chazal didn't
learn like him "v'lamah yihiyeh kasheh al harishonim lifaresh ki nisarech
galusam al haketz shiloshim shana..." Also, the whole machlokes, from a
historical perspective, amounts to ten years or less. But I do concede
that the Ramban seems to diverge from Chazal in this case.

> Similarly when talking about the rainbow. He does not say that
> the rainbow occurred first after the malbul like chazal say and that it
> also preexisted the malbul since the Greeks have shown it is a natural
> phenomenon. He says we are forced to accept the views of the Greek
> scientists that the rainbow always existed - and thus he is rejecting
> the view of chazal.

I don't remember any Chazal that claim that there was no rainbow until
Noach. Also, the Ramban doesn't say that he is accepting the Greeks
in lieu of Chazal but rather in lieu of what would ostensibly seem
to be pshat in the pasuk; although two seconds later he is chozer
and indicates that it *is* pashut pshat in the pasuk. He then brings
down a maamar Chazal al pi sod that in no way contradicts the "Greek"
interpretation. I think you need to scratch this instance off your list.

In sum, I only concede one time, or according to you, two times, that the
Ramban ever offered an alternative pshat to Chazal that contradicted them.
Seeing that the Ramban has thousands of pirushim on Tanach and shas,
I still think that the Ramban could properly be characterized as being
aligned with the idea of the infallibility of verified maamarey Chazal,
as the Ramban states openly in Sefer haMitzvos.

Simcha Coffer

Perhaps I should rephrase:
Enzymes change milk into cheese and enzymes also change nectar into honey.
One would be entitled to consider that just as honey is acceptably kosher
although it is produced only through the effects of enzymes produced by
non kosher insects, the same should be true for cheese made from enzymes
of non kosher animals.

meir

Yitzchok Zirkind wrote in response to:
>> why anything that requires Eliyahu Hanavi's pesak should be a davar
>> sheyesh lo matirin

> See Nkudos haKesef (from the Shach) on Y"D Simon 102 end of Ois 1
> who brings the Issur vHeter that says that it isn't DSL"M because then
> Pshat is that it was never Ossur, and adds from the Ramah that we cannot
> say that it is because it will rot by then because "Yochol Lovoi Bchol
> Sha'ah", see also my other post BL"N on this topic.

How can it be a DSLM because he MAY rule it is muttar? I suppose we might
speculate that even before Moshiach comes we might find some Poskim who
will be Mattir or B"Din may change its Pesak.

meir

On Wed, Dec 07, 2005 at 08:59:06PM -0500, S & R Coffer wrote:
: Wrong. They are not meyuchad to goyim because clothing is a human
: accoutrement, not a national one. The Torah talks about pants and suits and
: shirts etc. and it was written far before any current culture was conceived.

The Torah writes about knickers and galabiyah (michnasayim and
chaluq/kusones). Picture something more like Arab or Indian male
attire. For a uniform, a kohein would also wear a pointy hat and a
gartl, or also a vest or whatever they call those enlarged tallis-qatan
like thing medieval pages wore. From chalitzah, we know about sandals
and shoes.

No mention of button-down shirts (the button post dates chazal by a
millenium), ties or suits.

Moshe Rabbeinu is described as doing the 8 yemei mil'uim in a simple
chaluq and michnasayim of white linen. The tannaim, centuries later,
wore a tallis (which, it seems, had a neck hole), chaluq, michnasayim
and sandals.

In sifrei haheichalos (going 2nd-hand on this, so I can't say which
or where), there are mal'achim described as wearing white chaluq and
michnasayim.

No fedoras. No black, as already shown by REMT. On Shabbos your clothing
would be white, of course.

I raised the question on list about why it's permissable to dress
otherwise. No one took me very seriously at the time.

: As a nation, we've been around for over 3000 years. If anything, we have
: been imitated, not the converse. But neither is true. Staple clothing is
: uniform to all classes of humanity however...

Except that different parts of the world traditionally did NOT wear
the same kinds of clothes. Not until the global economy brought western
style to the fore.

On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 02:41:41PM -0800, Harry Maryles wrote:
: I wear a black hat. Does that label me?

Yes, it does label you. After all, if you were C, would you wear that
fedora? For many who see you, it will cause them to mis-label you as
Torah-only. But this is an Areivim topic, really. I believe RSC's point
is that while mutar, RMF would avoid the labeling that comes with blue
jeans. (And again, labeling someone by his clothes may be silly, but we
can't avoid making or causing those first impressions.)

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of
micha@aishdas.org        greater vanity in others; it makes us vain,
http://www.aishdas.org   in fact, of our modesty.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980)

On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 01:44:44AM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: *Sefer HaEshkol**(Hilchos Stam):*
: ...                       Rav Hai Gaon was asked what is the difference
: between those Agada and medrashim which are written in the Talmud and
: those that are not? He replied that whatever is found in the Talmud is
: more valid that what is not found in the Talmud. Nevertheless, even those
: Agada and Medrash which are found in the Talmud if they make no sense
: or are erroneous are not to be relied upon. That is because in general
: we don't treat Agada as being authoritative. However that which is
: found in the Talmud, we should correct their errors if possible....

To repeat, RSRH and RYSalanter shared a similar opinion. See
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol15/v15n003.shtml#03> for the RYS quote,
which says in part:
   The same thing happened to us. Chazal used terse symbolic language
   to describe the events of and before their time, and they recorded
   the Torah's wisdom and mussar in epigrams. These sayings were only
   understood by the people of their generations, and by mequbalim of
   later generations.

RDE provided RSRH's letters to R' Pinchas Wechsler (1876)
on the subject of emunas chachamim and aggadita. The
original, published by RMBreuer in Hama'ayan 1976 at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/hirschAgadaHebrew.pdf>.

And an English translation from Light Magazine, distributed by Neve Y-m as
a fundraiser: <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/hirschAgadaHebrew.pdf>

As we don't find any rishonim who insist on a literal history in aggadic
stories, and for that matter, it's hard to find any acharonim before my
time either, I am not clear on why this is a chiddush worthy of debate.
When people as far apart hashkaficly as the Rambam and the Maharal agree
on something, it's Torah, no?

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is a drop of intellect drowning in a sea
micha@aishdas.org        of instincts.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

From: "S & R Coffer" <rivkyc@sympatico.ca>
> "And therefore they [Plato and the
> philosophers which follow his approach] conclude that there exists an
> eternal substance, eternal like Hashem, which doesn't exist without Him
> and He doesn't exist without it". So far so good; this is unapologetic
> Platonic kadmus. But then the Rambam contradicts himself. He goes on
> and says as follows: "And they [these philosophers] do not claim that
> this substance possesses the same level of reality as Hashem but rather
> He is the cause of its existence and it is, for example, like material
> in the hands of a craftsman..." This seems to negate the idea of kadmus

The opinion the Rambam attributed to Plato is that God is the necessary
cause of matter and that time extends infinitely in both directions.
God is prior [kadum] to matter logically, since He is its cause, and not
vica versa, but they are both eternal [kadum]. You're bumping against
two different meanings of kadmus.

David Riceman 

On December 13, 2005, David Riceman wrote:
> The opinion the Rambam attributed to Plato is that God is the necessary
> cause of matter and that time extends infinitely in both directions.  God is
> prior [kadum] to matter logically, since He is its cause, and not vica
> versa, but they are both eternal [kadum].  You're bumping against two
> different meanings of kadmus.

I understand your semantic distinction but I do not follow you as far as its
application here. Rambam seems to understand Plato to say that "Creator" and
"substance" are two independent entities which always existed simultaneously
right? The way I understand Plato is that the hiyuli was never "brought"
into existence from a prior state of non-existence thus eliminating the idea
of creation ex nihilo and thus making Creator and substance both equally
eternal. If this is so, how can (a) be logically prior to (b) if (b) always
existed? You mention the "logical" kadmus as relating to cause but if (b)
always existed, in what sense can (a) be understood as being the cause of
(b)'s existence? 

Simcha Coffer

From: "S & R Coffer" <rivkyc@sympatico.ca>
> I understand your semantic distinction but I do not follow you as far as its
> application here. Rambam seems to understand Plato to say that "Creator" and
> "substance" are two independent entities which always existed simultaneously
> right?

No, they're not independent.  The Creator is a necessary cause and matter is 
a necessary effect (incidentally in the beginning of H. Yesodei HaTorah it 
is this view that the Rambam disagrees with when he says that God has no 
necessary effects, i.e., that creation was an act of God's free will).

> The way I understand Plato is that the hiyuli was never "brought"
> into existence from a prior state of non-existence thus eliminating the idea
> of creation ex nihilo and thus making Creator and substance both equally
> eternal. If this is so, how can (a) be logically prior to (b) if (b) always
> existed? You mention the "logical" kadmus as relating to cause but if (b)
> always existed, in what sense can (a) be understood as being the cause of
> (b)'s existence?

I agree that it sounds weird, so I'll give a simple (and slightly
misleading) example. Consider a circle. It has a center and a
circumference. The center is logically prior, since a circle is defined
to be all the points equidistant from the center. The center is not
temporally prior since time cannot be predicated of a Euclidean section.

IIUC the opinion we're discussing is not really that of Plato, but a
neoplatonic synthesis of parts of Plato (notably the Timaeus) with some
of Aristotle. I'm not convinced that either Plato or Aristotle would
have subscribed to it. According to this opinion God is the first cause,
and hence, by definition, primordial matter was caused by God.

David Riceman 

On December 13, 2005, David Riceman wrote: 
> No, they're not independent.  The Creator is a necessary cause and matter is
> a necessary effect 

If matter is classified as an "effect" then how could it have always
existed? At what point was it effected?

> I agree that it sounds weird, so I'll give a simple (and slightly
> misleading) example.  Consider a circle.  It has a center and a
> circumference.  The center is logically prior, since a circle is defined to
> be all the points equidistant from the center.  The center is not temporally
> prior since time cannot be predicated of a Euclidean section.

This makes perfect sense but as you say, is misleading. A circle and a
center are both predicated upon two dimensional spatial qualities which
logically "pre-date" (not temporally) these concepts and upon which
they are based. Kadmus as relates to the Creator and matter implies an
absolute lack of predication and thus it would seem that cause and affect,
as relates to these two entities, would have no meaning at all, temporal,
spatial or otherwise. The only way your interpretation could work is in
a pantheistic way which I don't see the Rambam as discussing. The Rambam
states "there is a primordial matter which exists eternally just as God,
[this matter] does not exist independently from him and he does not exist
independently from it". These last eight words demonstrate that the causal
relationship you describe is difficult to impute to the Rambam. (These
eight words have been the bane of my existence as relates to this Rambam)

> IIUC the opinion we're discussing is not really that of Plato, but a
> neoplatonic synthesis of parts of Plato (notably the Timaeus) with some of
> Aristotle.  I'm not convinced that either Plato or Aristotle would have
> subscribed to it.  According to this opinion God is the first cause, and
> hence, by definition, primordial matter was caused by God.

But the Rambam *does* identify this shita with Plato. I don't have
a problem with you seeing Plato in a different light than the Rambam
(and in fact, my instincts are aligned with your approach) but we
are discussing the Rambam's interpretation here. Although your circle
mashal was a step in the right direction, I still don't feel like I've
experienced closure on this issue.

Simcha Coffer

I arrived to give a shiur to some lawyers out in the Chicago suburbs about
Chanuka, bringing my tuna and bagels. Everyone looked at me like I was from
mars, or something. Finally, someone asked me, "Didn't you see the front
page of the Tribune." So here's a link to the article. I skimmed it.
Apparently it says that back in 1970 when they said tuna had dangerous
levels of mercury, but then they had it "fixed", it was a big lie. Nothing
has been fixed - and we've all been eating rally bad stuff all these years.
That's a bit oversimplified but that's the general gist. There's much
technical jargon and both sides of the story are in there (the Tuna
industry, the FDA (who apparantly had a person with vested interests in
their industry approving the tuna, and all the laws and history of the whole
thing, blah, blah, blah...) 

<http://tinyurl.com/bfakl>

So my question is, at what point do we say this isn't good for me and
I'm a fool to eat it? Assuming that's it's hard to measure what's going
on in any specific can of tuna, is this just a matter of personal
preference? We've all heard the tshuva from RMF about smoking. Any
individual cigarette won't kill you. It's ossur to get hooked on smoking,
but once hooked, who can say that any single cigarette is a dangerous
one? Is tuna the same? How do you decide? Do you wait for a psak? Is this
simply common sense and doesn't warrant a psak? Will you be eating tuna
in the next day or two? Do you have any uncomforatble feeling about it?

On 12/14/05, David Eisen <davide@arnon.co.il> wrote [on Areivim]:
> Dr. JB wrote:
>>>BTW Dr. Aumann asked Rav Aaron Lichtenstein whether he was mechuyav to
> recite the bracha "she'natan michvodo l'basar va'dam" when he shakes the
> hand of the Swedish king but was told "no" since the king had no formal
> powers.<<

> This is reminiscent of ROY's psak to the person attending the Aqaba
> summit in 1994 where he saw at the same time Bill Clinton, King Hussein
> and Yitzhak Rabin. He asked whether he needed to make the berakha of
> "asher halak m'kvodo" upon seeing any or all of these leaders. R. Ovadia
> paskened as follows: Clinton - No; Rabin - No; Hussein - Yes. Reason: Of
> the three, only Hussein had the power to summarily execute any of his
> citizens without due process.

Agnon did make the beracha when he received his Nobel prize, and made
a big deal of it in his speech:
<http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1966/agnon-speech.html>

Extract in translation (I can't find the original online):

It happened when the Swedish Chargי d'Affaires came and brought me the
news that the Swedish Academy had bestowed the Nobel Prize upon me.
Then I recited in full the blessing that is enjoined upon one that hears
good tidings for himself or others: «Blessed be He, that is good and doeth
good. «Good», in that the good God put it into the hearts of the sages
of the illustrious Academy to bestow that great and esteemed Prize upon
an author who writes in the sacred tongue; «that doeth good », in that
He favoured me by causing them to choose me. And now that I have come so
far, I will recite one blessing more, as enjoined upon him who beholds
a monarch: «Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe,
Who hast given of Thy glory to a king of flesh and blood. Over you,
too, distinguished sages of the Academy, I say the prescribed blessing:
«Blessed be He, that has given of His wisdom to flesh and blood. »

The last three Chief Rabbis of Great Britain have all been knighted by
the Queen. Does anyone know if they made the beracha?

On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 10:12:37PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
:> One would think that with the explicit passuk KI SHESHET YAMIM ASAH ....
:> one would be required to believe in a literal 144 (human) hour length
:> of MB.

: Certainly; especially since the Ramban emphasizes that the 7 days of
: creation were 24 hour days...

But nearly everyone (pace RCS, but I trust the meivi la'or's opinion
over yours, doubly so since it matches my naive reading) reads REED as
somehow asserting that that's only part of the Ramban's story.

But the Ramban, like most mequbalim, holds that there was time between
Bereishis 1:1 and 1:2. So he too agrees there was an extended process;
the Ramban simply disagrees about how that fits the pesuqim.

: believe is concerned, we don't need all the details in Braishis, only
: the fact stated in the Asseress HaDibros that the world was created IN
: SIX DAYS....

Six yamim. And I've already argued that "yom" has other literal
definitions.

:                         ...  And the Rambam says the first day as well
: as the following ones was timed by one revolution of the sphere. And
: many other rishonim also obviously assume that a day is a day, not a
: tekufah. Not one suggests it was a tekufah. In a previous post I showed
: that Rashi, Ramban, Rambam, R. Saadia Gaon (who says that a professed navi
: who claims that Hashem took ONE YEAR, rather than six days, to create the
: world, is a navi shekker)...

But that was argued as being about the navi sheqer's sevarah, not the
maskanah.

And who said the spheres moved at the same speed, or even at a constant
speed? Perhaps yom = one revolution, but it was revolving REALLY slowly?

We've been through this before. The only rishon who explicitly connects
yom to hours and minutes of the normal sort is the Ramban -- as addressed
in two different ways above.

:                    I have since found a statement by Avraham ben HaRambam
: (in Sefer Milchamos Hashem) that also states his strong stand (which he
: attributes to his father as well) that the world is young and has existed
: for only several thousand years since Creation (not just since Adam).

Hainu hakh. The end of creation WAS Adam.

:                   But please see R. J. Ostrov's ecxellent posts showing
: that the evidence, by admission of the proponents of old-world theories
: themselves, is not really compelling. The evolutionists won't agree to a
: young world, of course; but neither did the Aristotelean world reverse
: its opinions upon publication of Moreh Nevuchim. The Rambam, you see,
: merely proposed a fringe, scientifically un-mainstream approach.

It's not just evolution, nor just geology, it's the starlight problem,
red shifting, carbon dating and similar schemes using other elements,
vechulu... It's dozens of theories in different disciplines producing
common results. The history of life, of the planet, of the solar system,
of the galaxy and visible universe, etc... on all the scales, current
physics requires an old universe.

To translate RJO's transcription of RSEM's position:
    The intent of what I wrote "the properties of time" is that the laws
    of nature were entirely different during the 6 days of bereishis from
    what exists now. And everything Dr. Schroeder wrote is about the
    laws of nature which act now, and therefore there is no similarity
    from what I wrote to what the above chakham wrote.

Once you presume that the current physics didn't apply, neither did the
current notion of time. Time without formulas mapping various behaviors
to the same t is just meaningless. Brains run at different speeds,
experiencing the time as different. Bodies age at different speeds. If
there were clocks, they would have run at different speeds and the
one clock from one moment to the next. Thus the formulas of physics
define time.

A universe without time or with a different kind of time is also
incomprehensible, but I'm okay with being someone who only knows how
the human is, and being unable to understand what the fetus was like.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
micha@aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rabbi Israel Salanter

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