Volume 32: Number 32
Wed, 26 Feb 2014
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:10:27 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Why does Moshe use logical arguments when
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 03:54:11AM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
:> REED's position (MmE vol II pp 150-154, "Yemei Bereishis veYemai
:> Olam", which I discuss at
:> http://www.aishdas.org/asp/rav-desslers-approach-to-creation ) is
:> less extreme, but he does consider linear time and time's arrow to
:> be products of the human condition and time as we experience it is
:> far short of the reality, a consequence of the cheit of the eitz
:> hadaas. ...
...
:> In the section "Havchanas haZeman", Rav Dessler points
:> out that time passes as a function of the number of experiences we
:> have. When we have more experiences, we have more opportunities
:> for choice, for fulfilling desires.
:> But while man's choice now revolves around many issues, Adam qodem
:> hacheit [AQH] had only one choice, and therefore didn't have the
:> same connection to the flow of time. [pg. 151] We can not
:> understand what time was like to AQH.
: It seems to me that three distinct ideas are being conflated here:
: a) experiences
: b) choices
: c) choices between tov and ra
Actually AQH's choices were between emes and sheqer. I don't know where
you see (c). I understand REED as saying that until the eitz hada'as,
we had only one thing to make choices about, and after the eitz hada'as
we have all these conflicting taavos as well.
Let's assume that the experiences under discussion are internal. Not
seeing a tree, but the conscious event of having seen a tree. A
child notes everything, so they have many more experiences than an
adult whose seen it all before. A bored person, who has plenty of time
to contemplate has many more mental experiences than a busy one, even
as fewer things impinge on his consciousness through his senses. (Most
of those experiences might be of noting the empty passage of time...)
Recall also that REED limits bechirah to choices made consciously.
Actions initiated preconsciously (like a normal person's decision not
to shoplift) are beyond the nequdas habechirah. Every choice is thus
an experience, in this sense of the word.
: Another section which RMB referred to appears on page 34.
:> It is the task of every human being to grasp these opportunities and
:> take the divine influences into his soul. Every moment in his life
:> has the power to influence him in important ways. A person likes to
:> believe that time has nothing to do with his inner self and effects no
:> changes. He thinks his ego is fixed and never changes, and that time
:> simply passes over him. But this concept is wrong. Our sages have stated
:> in the Talmud that during the nine months before someone's birth, he is
:> able to see from one end of the world to the other. The meaning is that
:> he is given the ability to see everything from the perspective of the
:> "end point." From this vantage point he realizes that all the manifold
:> events in the world are one; they all exist for the sole purpose of
:> revealing the glory of Hashem. When a person is born, he enters into
:> the restricted world of space and time. But in fact, this latter state
:> of consciousness reflects only the world of behhira, in which every
:> moment that passes leaves its imprint on our lives, for good or for bad,
:> according to our reaction to the challenges posed by that moment.
: This is an entirely different explanation than that above. If
: an individual (such as one who is not born yet) can see all events,
: past and future, that would seem to rule out any ability to experience
: change, and thus no ability to experience time. If this also applies to
: neshamos of the dead, that would be very relevant to the questions of
: this thread. But that logic has nothing to do with bechira.
I think you're confusing "can see" with "does see". After all, REED
appears to be saying time's arrow is subjective, and a very limited
perception of what time really is. But there is "time really is", and
our whole question was how that applies to souls not in bodies.
For example, there is an Adam *qodem* lacheit and one *achar*; a timeless
Adam wouldn't be able to change states. Nor did my whole thing on time
try to do away with the difference between saying Qaddish 11 months and
saying them 12 -- somehow, a meis does change state at some point that
at least corresponds to a year. Might be symbolic, or might be real but
in some manner we can't understand, like the equivalence of the week
of creation and the rest of history. I don't think REED or internal GPS
clocks would allow it to be a year in our sense of the word. Therefore
I argued against even the possibility of applying time's arrow between
saying Qaddish and the aliyah.
On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 09:04:09AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
> RMB:
>> Where I think the Rambam breaks from the rishonim whose thought more
>> of us follow (the Kuzari, Rashi, Ramban, Ran, the Ikarim, etc...) on
>> this is that the Rambam in the first cheileq of the Moreh says that
>> G-d-as-perceived is a Role Model. The idea of actually relating to G-d
>> on a personal level doesn't fit the Moreh or Yesodei haTorah. (Except,
>> perhaps, as a crutch for the spiritually/intellectually limited.)
> I gather from reading some of his writings that RYBS (a) followed the
> Rambam pretty closely in the foundations of theology and (b) was in
> favor of "actually relating to G-d on a personal level". Would you
> comment on how he fits in your dichotomy?
I disagree with (a). I think RYBS's agenda was to build a new hashkafah
based only on halakhah (and his neoKantian gestalt). After all, the
mesorah for halakhah is much firmer footing than what we can glean from
prior hashkafic works. Besides, this halakhah-centrism was inherited
with his last name!
Besides, growing up in Chaslovitch would have made an intellectual,
> On the other extreme RHV in Nefesh HaHayyim (a) followed the Ari pretty
> closely and (b) seems far removed from "actually relating to G-d on a
> personal level". How does he fit your dichotomy?
Here I disagree with (b), I think the latter part of shaar 2 requires
knowing G-d, rather than compehending Him (or at least, what He isn't).
But in any case, I didn't intend to identify all non-Maimonidians with
a deveiqus approach. Rather, to say (1) the Rambam had no place for a
Personal G-d, and (2) this is because of a hashkafah which happens to
also be unique. Other alternatives to the Rambam's focus on yesdi'ah
Other options include morally emulating Him, finishing His creation,
yes -- having a personal relationship with G-d, and many others. But the
Rambam's intellecual model doesn't leave room for a personal relationship.
RCV's model, like the Gra's, is about sheleimus. (Even if I just handwaved
over the suggestion that that sheleimus involves a personal relationship,
it is not all *about* the relationship.) This idea then evolved two
different ways: the yeshiva movement focusing on Shaar 4, and the idea
that Torah study purified the soul, and the mussar movement focusing
on the other she'arim, and saying it's not enough without conscious
effort, too.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger It's nice to be smart,
mi...@aishdas.org but it's smarter to be nice.
http://www.aishdas.org - R' Lazer Brody
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 2
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:44:54 -0600
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased
I think there's some mistranslation going on here.
???? ??? ????? ??????? ???? ??? ????? ?? ??? ????. ??? ?? ?? ?????????
?? ????-????? - ????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ????? - ???? ????? ?????? ???
??-??? ????, ???? ?????? ??? ??-?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ????-????? ???
????? ???? ????? ???.
I've copied the above from
http://press.tau.ac.il/perplexed/chapters/chap_2_06.htm. For those who
can't see it, here's a transliteration:
Yodea ata she'mal'akh mashma'uto shaliach, v'khol ha-mevatze'a tzav hu
mal'akh. Lachen, gam al tenu'oteihem shel ba'alei chayim, afilu al eileh
me-hem she-lo nichanu b'sechel, omer ha-katuv b'mefurash she-hen al
yedei mal'akh, ka'asher ha-tenu'a hee al pi matarat ha-Elokah asher sam
b'va'alei chayim koach ha-meini'a oto tenu'a zot.
And a translation:
You should know that the meaning of "angel" is "messenger", and anything
which carries out a command [of Hashem] is an angel. Therefore, even
regarding the movements of animals, even those not graced with
intelligence, scripture says explicitly that they [those movements] are
[carried out] by an angel, as the movement is for the purpose of the
Divine, which gave the animals the strength/power which causes it to
move with this motion.
What the Rambam is saying is not that the animal is being spurred on by
an angel, but that the animal itself, while it is carrying out the
Divine Will, is an angel for the duration. This is what I've always
understood to be the case, that even the planets and stars, in their
role as things which carry out Hashem's will, are mal'akhim. As are
people, in cases where Hashem temporarily infringes on their bechira in
order to carry out a necessary task.
Of course, there are mal'akhim which are spiritual in nature, like the
ones who say Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh and the like, and the Rambam isn't
discussing those in this passage. But again, just because they don't
have forms made of matter doesn't mean that they don't have well defined
structure which exists within determined parameters.
Lisa
On 2/25/2014 1:48 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 01:57:57PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
> :> Pretty much every rishon has done that. Not just for G-d, but for
> :> mal'akhim and neshamos -- any thing that has no chomer. Yesodei
> :> haTorah pereq 2. Also, much of the Moreh cheileq 1. The idea of
> :> physical location without chomer would have been as unthinkable to
> :> the Rambam (or the Kuzari, or the Ramban...) as my own assumption
> :> that the suggestion wouldn't be on the table.
>
> : Yesodei haTorah 2:3 says that the mal'achim are creations which have
> : form, even though they do not have matter...
>
> I cited already from the Moreh 2:6, here's a longer quote:
> We have already stated above that the angels are incorporeal. This
> agrees with the opinion of Aristotle: there is only this difference
> in the names employed--he uses the term "Intelligences," and we
> say instead "angels." His theory is that the Intelligences are
> intermediate beings between the Prime Cause and existing things,
> and that they effect the motion of the spheres, on which motion the
> existence of all things depends. This is also the view we meet with
> in all parts of Scripture: every act of God is described as being
> performed by angels. But "angel" means "messenger"; hence every
> one that is intrusted with a certain mission is an angel. Even the
> movements of the brute creation are sometimes due to the action of
> an angel, when such movements serve the purpose of the Creator, who
> endowed it with the power of performing that movement... [Examples
> from Tankh ellided.]
>
> Angels are non-physical, pure intellects, the metaphysical chain of
> causality from the Creator down to the spheres and the physical universe.
>
> (BTW, tzurah/form/morph doesn't mean the same thing as the modern word
> "shape".)
>
> But I can't take this stream of thought too far. Part of my argument
> is that modern experimental data (and GPS design) show that time,
> space and gracity are inseprable. Aristo defines time as a property of
> a process, an idea put to rest by Galileo's work on pendulums, showing
> a common concept of time shared by different systems. Time as a dimension,
> although not in the sapcetime sense (yet). And making metaphysics about
> intellect is also intimately tied to Aristo's physics, as Aristo
> believed that all motion and change originates with an intellect.
> (Intellect imparts an impetus to an object, which responds until the
> impetus runs out.)
>
> So, dwelling too heavily on the Rambam's angelology puts us in a
> different worldview than the one I'm leveraging. And in fact, it
> was developed (mostly by Aristo) to explain a model of physics
> that Newton's Laws of intertia and momentum did away with.
>
> ...
> : In other words, just because something isn't physical, that does NOT
> : mean it is outside of time.
>
> Sorry, I don't see that from your first words. A metaphysical chain
> of sibah and mesoveiv doesn't require that one come before the other
> chronologically.
>
> : My if/then above presumes a basic point, namely that Hashem's awareness
> : of past and future in experiential, not informational. We've often
> : suggested that Hashem sees the universe as a 4D sculpture, seeing all
> : moments in the same glance...
>
> I would not say that, but rather something similar that is yet very
> different. We can't know how G-d sees or knows the universe. The
> "4D sculpture" models more of the Truth than saying He sees a 3D
> movie. A movie is shown to a person by mapping its timeline to his,
> and Hashem has no timeline. A sculpture, though, is embedded in the
> same spaces as the viewer. Really, the past-to-fugure of a movie
> isn't /that/ difference than the left-to-right of a sculprutre. And
> Hashem isn't embedded in either. Still, it helps us relate to hakol
> tzafui vehareshus nesunah and other dilemmas, so the 4D sculpture
> is of use -- as an approximation of an unknowable.
>
>> of relativity. But I've been presuming that when the not-yet-born sees the
>> past and future, it is merely informational - he has knowledge of past
>> and future, much as a navi does. But this does not place him outside
>> of relativity... I submit that the not-yet-born is not
>> a god, and cannot possibly see the universe as a 4D sculpture the way
>> Hashem does.
> It is possible that the not-yet-born actually sees something much closer
> to the 4D scupture. And thus not be a god, whose "understanding" is
> not exactly like any of our models.
>
> But they and the deceased have to be outside relativity, because souls
> have no location in space and no velocity. There is nothing that has time
> without space, and there is no way to talk about the rate at which time
> passes for something (relative to other things) without having a velocity.
>
> : As I recall, when Adam Harishon was created, he too was able to see
> : from one end to the other...
>
> Yes, that's a central piece of our qeta from MmE.
>
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 09:15:08AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
>> I don't follow this deduction. For the Rambam creation need not be in
>> time (after all, he holds that time itself is a creation). Could he not
>> be referring to logical priority rather than temporal priority?
> I would go beyond just "need not" -- we can actively assert that according
> to the Rambam, creation was not in time. Moreh 2:30 says the 6 days are
> logical steps, not temporal sequence.
>
> The true explanation of the first verse of Genesis is as follows: "In
> [creating] a principle God created the beings above and the things
> below." This explanation is in accordance with the theory of the
> Creation. We find that some of our Sages are reported to have held
> the opinion that time existed before the Creation. But this report
> is very doubtful, because the theory that time cannot be imagined
> with a beginning, has been taught by Aristotle, as I showed you,
> and is objectionable. Those who have made this assertion have been
> led to it by a saying of one of our Sages in reference to the terms
> "one day," "a second day." ... I told you that the foundation of
> our faith is the belief that God created the Universe from nothing;
> that time did not exist previously, but was created: for it depends
> on the motion of the sphere, and the sphere has been created.
>
> As aboce, this is because the Rambam followed Aristo's notion that time
> is a propery of a process. So, until there were physical things moving,
> there could be no time.
>
> The Shem Tov (ad loc) writes (tr RDEindesohn):
> Just as G-d is an absolute unity, His actions are also unified
> and from His organization came out the sequence of Creation. At
> the start time was created simultaneously with the rest of
> Creation. It is incorrect to say that Creation began at the start
> of time. Consequently creation consisted of entities that were
> separate and distinct and prioritized which is not a reflection of
> G-d Who is an absolute unity. Their prioritization is the result of
> their nature as to what their purpose and causal relationship is
> in combining and interacting with other things. Therefore it only
> in describing their level in reality that we say Day One, Day Two
> but not that they were created in this sequence. Thus the Rambams
> explanation rejects the literal meaning of the Torah verses. He
> asserts that everything was created simultaneously. It is only as
> a reflection as to their purpose and importance does the Torah say
> first second and third and the rest of the days.
>
> This is also the Abarbnel's take on the Rambam (9th Q on the opening
> of Bereishis):
> The Rambam cited Chazal that the word es indicated that the creation
> on the first day included everything associated with the Heavens
> as well as everything associated with the Earth. He also cited the
> gemora (Chulin 60a) that everything that was created was created
> in its final form. He also cited another statement of Chazal that
> the Heavens and Earth were created simultaneously. Thus the Rambam
> believed that the work of Creation happened all on one day and was
> not divided amongst six days. He claimed that in a single moment
> of creation everything came into existence. He explained that the
> reason for the Torah stating that there were six days of Creation
> was to indicate the different levels of created beings according to
> their natural hierarchy. Thus the Rambam does not understand the
> word day to be a temporal day and he doesnt read Bereishis to be
> describing the chronological sequence of creation....
>
>>> My if/then above presumes a basic point, namely that Hashem's
>>> awareness of past and future in experiential, not informational.
>> There's a third option. God's awareness of past and future could be
>> based on a knowledge of paradigms (admittedly this is closely related to
>> two medieval disputes: do universals exist and does God know
>> particulars). I strongly recommend Wolfson's essay "Extradeical and
>> Intradeical Interpretations of Platonic Ideas".
> A fourth possibility -- "to exist" and "to be known by G-d" are synonymous
> phrases. I think this is the Rambam's actual opinion. In Moreh 1:68,
> he writes:
> You are acquainted with the well-known principle of the philosophers
> that God is the intellectus, the ens intelligens, and the ens
> intelligibile....
>
> Okay, those three words are pretty much opaque, so lets go to
> Hebrew translations:
> Ibn Tibon and Shwartz: haseikhel, hamaskil, vehamuskal
> "Kapach" (el-Qafih): hdei'ah, hayodei'ah vehayadu'ah
>
> Both Dr Schwartz and Ribbi el-Qafih have footnotes pointing you to
> Aristo's Metaphysics vol XII ch. 7, 9. Schwartz has more than a citation,
> explicitly mentioning Aristo's notion of the Creator as "the Thought
> which Knows Itself".
>
> Still probably as clear as mud. Maybe snippets from the Rambam's
> explanation of how this is an absolute Unity will help:
>
> ... These three things are in God one and the same, and do
> not in any way constitute a plurality.... I will tell you now what
> has been proved. Man, before comprehending a thing, comprehends it
> in potentia when, however, he comprehends a thing, e.g., the form
> of a certain tree which is pointed out to him, when he abstracts
> its form from its substance, and reproduces the abstract form, an
> act performed by the intellect, he comprehends in reality, and the
> intellect which he has acquired in actuality, is the abstract form
> of the tree in man's mind. For in such a case the intellect is not a
> thing distinct from the thing comprehended. It is therefore clear to
> you that the thing comprehended is the abstract form of the tree, and
> at the same time it is the intellect in action: and that the intellect
> and the abstract form of the tree are not two different things,
> for the intellect in action is nothing but the thing comprehended,
> and that agent by which the form of the tree has been turned into an
> intellectual and abstract object, namely, that which comprehends,
> is undoubtedly the intellect in action. All intellect is identical
> with its action: the intellect in action is not a thing different
> from its action, for the true nature and assence of the intellect is
> comprehension, and you must not think that the intellect in action
> is a thing existing by itself, separate from comprehension...
>
> So humans know "the abstract form of the tree" which is one with our
> thinking ability and our thinking action. But HQBH doesn't have sensory
> knowledge, He Knows the tree's actual form.
>
> (R' Jack Love, a rebbe-chaver, suggested to me that this might be
> the metaphysical explanation of Everett's Many Worlds interpretation
> of QM. Two exist is to be known by G-d. Well, G-d would contemplate
> every eventuality, so... Problem: Hashem would equally contemplate
> the physically impossible, not just every possible value of the wave
> function...)
>
> Quoting from the next chapter (1:69), "I have thus explained to you in
> what sense God is said to be the Agens, the Form, and the End. This
> is the reason why the philosophers not only call Him 'the Maker' but
> also 'the Cause'."
>
> It is even possible that sheim havayah is the hi'fil of /hvh/, and
> that its peshat is Hashem as Agent.
>
> R Jon Baker (CC-ed, since he fell into lurking) and I were on the same
> side of a debate about this on scjm in Nov 2003. He wrote
> <http://j.mp/1o3OvRo> (Google Groups archive of Usenet copy):
>> If you accept M's apparent three-way identity relationship between
>> Knower == Knowledge == Known, how do you define Known so as to avoid the
>> apparent panentheism which that identity describes? Or even pantheism -
>> if the idea does not posit that the Knower is infinitely greater than
>> the Known?
> And:
>> a) Kalam: the clockmaker.
>> b) [The Rambam]: the Creator and he who provides shefa for continued
>> existence, but not identical with the created universe. The electric
>> company - they made the lamp, and need to supply electricity for the
>> lamp to work, if the electricity is cut off, the lamp ceases to work.
>> c) Panentheist (Hasidic?): The universe is God's essence, but is
>> nullified beside Him, and has no real existence aside from God's
>> existence....
> The intradeical Knowledge of all forms, not only the Platonic Ideal
> Forms.
>
> To bring these back to where I started, I'll let an earlier post of RJJB's
> in that scjm thread reintroduce Kant <http://j.mp/1gzYwTC>, rather than
> staying with the Rambam and Aristo's physics and metaphysics to discuss
> something I said given the Maharal and REED, Kant and Einstein (or the
> data collected to confirm Einstein):
>
>> I, the knower, have knowledge of the known. Or, to quote Kant
>> (Crit. Pur. Reas.)
>> : OUR knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the
>> : mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations
>> : (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of
>> : knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in
>> : the production] of concepts). Through the first an object is given
>> : to us, through the second the object is thought in relation to
>> : that [given] representation (which is a mere determination of
>> : the mind). Intuition and concepts constitute, therefore, the
>> : elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an
>> : intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition
>> : without concepts, can yield knowledge. Both may be either pure or
>> : empirical. When they contain sensation (which presupposes the
>> : actual presence of the object), they are empirical. When there is
>> : no mingling of sensation with the representation,they are pure.
>> : Sensation may be entitled the material of sensible knowledge.
>> : Pure intuition, therefore, contains only the form under which [B75]
>> : something is intuited; the pure concept only the form of the [A51]
>> : thought of an object in general. Pure intuitions or pure
>> : concepts alone are possible a priori, empirical intuitions and
>> : empirical concepts only a posteriori.
>> We have intuition, which is based on sense-experience, and there are
>> objects. Our internal representation of the object (the knowledge,
>> in M's terminology) is not identical with the object itself (the known).
> I know the world as I experience it, Hashem Knows the world as it is,
> which may be the cause of the world or actually what existing means.
> But -- unlike my knowledge -- could not be caused by the known, since
> that would imply that G-d went from able-to-know to actually knowing,
> a change. Hashem isn't the consequence of any causes.
>
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha
>
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Message: 3
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:28:20 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased
On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 02:44:54PM -0600, Lisa Liel wrote:
> http://press.tau.ac.il/perplexed/chapters/chap_2_06.htm. For those who
...
> What the Rambam is saying is not that the animal is being spurred on by
> an angel, but that the animal itself, while it is carrying out the
> Divine Will, is an angel for the duration...
Yes, mal'akh also refers to embodied messengers, because it's basically
a term for "Hashem's shaliach" in general. As the pereq opens "Kevar
bei'arnu shituf sheim mal'akh -- the Rambam is dealing with a homonym.
But we're discussing angels in the classical sense. His tzurah beli chomer
of YhT 2:3-8, his sikhliim nivdalim in the part of the pereq I quoted. As
Schwartz translates it in the page you link to "shemal'akhim einum
gufim". The ones that can only be seen in prophetic vision, leshitaso.
The Rambam brings this definition issue up in middle of describing how
right Aristo got his sikhliim nivdalim based metaphysics to explain
their function.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
mi...@aishdas.org I do, then I understand." - Confucius
http://www.aishdas.org "Hearing doesn't compare to seeing." - Mechilta
Fax: (270) 514-1507 "We will do and we will listen." - Israelites
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Message: 4
From: Shalom Carmy <ca...@yu.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:26:12 +0000
Subject: [Avodah] R. Soloveitchik and protest
In my time (late 60's and early '70s) we once asked the Rav to give an
early shiur to accommodate a protest rally. (Historians who wish to
determine the exact date would want to know that the protest was addressed
by the comedian Sam Levenson, who spoke of burning his Russian hat).
The Rav acceded to an early shiur and finished on time!! Upon adjourning, he said: "Make a lot of noise."
The revisionists immediately interpreted that the Rav was really against
the demonstration. He had agreed to give early shiur only because he was
intimidated by the talimidim. And he really really really meant that since
we were going anyway, we may as well make a lot of noise.
I have no idea whether he consulted experts on this subject. I do know that
he regularly received briefings from the Israeli consulate and no doubt had
contact with other siources of information.
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Message: 5
From: David Riceman <drice...@optimum.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 16:55:05 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased
Me:
> "V'habit el amal lo suchal" (Hab. 1:13), "lo hibit aven b'yaakov
> vlo ra'ah amal b'yisrael" (Balak 23:21). So God doesn't see
> everything.
RAM:
Sorry, I just don't see it. It's not saying anything about what He
is*capable* of seeing, chalilah; His capabilities include seeing anything
and everything. Those psukim are talking about what He*chooses* to look
at.
"Lo hibit aven b'yaakov" - He doesn't look at Yaakov's faults.
"V'habit el amal lo suchal" is not a statement of His abilities. It is a desperate plea: How can You look at such things?!?!
Me again:
Are you familiar with any clearly subjunctive uses of "yachol" in Tanach?
Rabbi Dessler makes a distinction about choice: he says there are things we
can choose, and things which are above and beneath us. I once gave a
drasha in which I gave the following example of lack of choice of something
beneath us:
Any of us could think: "I could stand up during the silent amida in mussaf
on Yom Kippur and recite bawdy limericks in a loud stentorian tone, but I
won't, because it would be wrong." But we don't think that, because that
thought is beneath us.
So there are two types of abilities: things we can't do because we lack the
physical capacity, and things we can't do because we lack the
emotional/psychological/moral capacity.
We can't make such a distinction about God. God may have freely chosen to
make Kermit green and not yellow (in spite of being handicapped by Kermit
being a fictional character), but can you say that God freely chose what we
consider an essential part of His role as God?
RAM:
Surely you're not suggesting that the Torah is something external to G-d, which He needed to study in order to figure out how to create the world.
Look at the previous paragraph in the midrash. I can't imagine any other way to read it.
David Riceman
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Message: 6
From: Lisa Liel <l...@starways.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 17:11:56 -0600
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased
On 2/25/2014 3:55 PM, David Riceman wrote:
> RAM:
> Sorry, I just don't see it. It's not saying anything about what He
> is*capable* of seeing, chalilah; His capabilities include seeing
> anything and everything. Those psukim are talking about what
> He*chooses* to look at.
>
> "Lo hibit aven b'yaakov" - He doesn't look at Yaakov's faults.
> "V'habit el amal lo suchal" is not a statement of His abilities. It is a desperate plea: How can You look at such things?!?!
>
> Me again:
>
> Are you familiar with any clearly subjunctive uses of "yachol" in Tanach?
Lo tuchal latet alecha ish nochri. I don't think anyone suggests that
it isn't possible.
And just to add, l'habit is different than lir'ot in the same way that
the verbs "see" and "look" are different in English. Seeing is a simple
sensory thing, while looking implies intent or focus.
> Any of us could think: "I could stand up during the silent amida in
> mussaf on Yom Kippur and recite bawdy limericks in a loud stentorian
> tone, but I won't, because it would be wrong." But we don't think
> that, because that thought is beneath us.
<facepalm> I'm just hoping that I don't remember this email come Yom
Kippur, because it'd be very distracting.
> So there are two types of abilities: things we can't do because we
> lack the physical capacity, and things we can't do because we lack the
> emotional/psychological/moral capacity.
>
> We can't make such a distinction about God. God may have freely
> chosen to make Kermit green and not yellow (in spite of being
> handicapped by Kermit being a fictional character), but can you say
> that God freely chose what we consider an essential part of His role
> as God?
Can you say the converse? Does the word "choose" even pertain to God
when He's not time bound?
> RAM:
>
> Surely you're not suggesting that the Torah is something external to G-d, which He needed to study in order to figure out how to create the world.
>
> Look at the previous paragraph in the midrash. I can't imagine any other way to read it.
I can. It's a midrash, and no one ever thought Hashem looked at it like
a blueprint literally.
Lisa
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Message: 7
From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 02:48:09 GMT
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased (was: Why does Moshe use,
R' Micha Berger wrote:
> Angels are non-physical, pure intellects, the metaphysical chain
> of causality from the Creator down to the spheres and the physical
> universe. (BTW, tzurah/form/morph doesn't mean the same thing as
> the modern word "shape".)
I'm curious what the difference is between those words -- but not *very*
curious, and I'd probably think the matter to be irrelevant anyway, because
to me, the only important factor is that mal'achim and neshamos and such
are finite creations. They may or may not be part of the *physical* world,
but they are certainly part of *some* world. They are not creators. They
are not infinite.
> A metaphysical chain of sibah and mesoveiv doesn't require that
> one come before the other chronologically.
That's true, it doesn't require it. But it doesn't forbid it either. Some
could be chronological while others are not. I see no reason to believe
that all angels are by definition above time, or that none of them are.
Current theories of relativity insist that all matter and all energy are
subject to time, but if mal'achim are neither, then all bets are off.
In the US, we have a First Lady. In Britain there is a Prime Minister.
Neither of them is the oldest of their group. The title relates to
importance, not chronology. One must understand the nature of the title
and/or the person to know how to apply it.
> It is possible that the not-yet-born actually sees something
> much closer to the 4D scupture. And thus not be a god, whose
> "understanding" is not exactly like any of our models.
>
> But they and the deceased have to be outside relativity, because
> souls have no location in space and no velocity. There is nothing
> that has time without space, and there is no way to talk about the
> rate at which time passes for something (relative to other things)
> without having a velocity.
But we don't KNOW that they have no location and no velocity and no space.
All we can be sure of is that they are creations. This is why I cited Rav
Lopian's analogy from radio waves to kedusha waves. Note that radio was not
an invention but a discovery -- The sun and all sources of heat and light
have always been emanating these rays. They were but static background
noise for millenia, and we were unaware of them. But now we can broadcast
them, receive them, and they most certainly ARE subject to time. I see no
reason to reject a POSSIBILITY that someday we'll perceive the physical
reality of neshamos as well.
Akiva Miller
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Message: 8
From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmil...@juno.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:11:50 GMT
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Time for the Deceased
I wrote about the word "hibit":
> Sorry, I just don't see it. It's not saying anything about what
> He is *capable* of seeing, chalilah; His capabilities include
> seeing anything and everything. Those psukim are talking about
> what He *chooses* to look at.
> "Lo hibit aven b'yaakov" - He doesn't look at Yaakov's faults.
> "V'habit el amal lo suchal" is not a statement of His abilities.
> It is a desperate plea: How can You look at such things?!?!
R' David Riceman responded:
> Are you familiar with any clearly subjunctive uses of "yachol"
> in Tanach?
I honestly don't know what you're asking. Could you please rephrase? Are
you suggesting that Tanach does talk about His abilities, or that it
doesn't? (I'm also not sure exactly what the subjunctive is in English, or
how it would appear in Hebrew.)
I *did* look in my concordance (Mandelkern pg 477) to see how Tanach uses
this word. I only skimmed through it, but curiously, I did not notice ANY
examples of its use with G-d as the subject. It always seemed to appear in
the context of what *people* can or cannot do.
On the other hand, yoveh (to be willing) appears with God as the subject
often enough (Devarim 23:6, 29:19, Yehoshua 24:10). Choice involves
causation, and causation suggests time, and so the idea that God might
actually choose between two course of action is certainly problematic. But
there *are* answers to this problem, like to many other problems, such as
how He might "regret" a choice *afterwards* (Bereshis 6:6).
> So there are two types of abilities: things we can't do because we
> lack the physical capacity, and things we can't do because we lack
> the emotional/psychological/moral capacity.
I would add at least one more: Things that can't be done because they are
definitionally not possible. This category, in my view, includes things
like the rock which is so heavy that God can't lift it, or a rectangle that
has 7.4 sides.
> We can't make such a distinction about God. God may have freely
> chosen to make Kermit green and not yellow (in spite of being
> handicapped by Kermit being a fictional character), but can you
> say that God freely chose what we consider an essential part of
> His role as God?
Are you asking if God freely chose what abilities He has, and what
abilities He doesn't have? I don't know. It's a question without much
meaning to it, because He is eternal. Not having a beginning, it is
difficult for me to consider how to talk about the abilities that He
started out with. Maybe you're asking something else.
Akiva Miller
____________________________________________________________
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Message: 9
From: Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer <r...@aishdas.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 01:59:20 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] R. Soloveitchik and protest
On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:26:12 +0000 Shalom Carmy <ca...@yu.edu> wrote:
> In my time (late 60's and early '70s) we once asked the Rav to give
> an early shiur to accommodate a protest rally. (Historians who wish to
> determine the exact date would want to know that the protest was addressed
> by the comedian Sam Levenson, who spoke of burning his Russian hat).
...
Fascinating that no one thought to ask him whether to go or not to go!
KT,
YGB
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Message: 10
From: cantorwolb...@cox.net
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:10:02 -0500
Subject: [Avodah] Parshas Shekalim
What is the lesson of the half shekel?
For one, it is the lesson of how to use money.
When b?nai Yisroel were freed from Mitzrayim,
the Almighty lavished upon them great wealth
(from the Egyptians). When God sought to destroy
them for fashioning the egel hazahav, one of the
arguments of Moshe was: ?You cannot blame this
people for making the golden calf. You gave them
too much money which they misused and therefore
made the calf.? The midrash tells us that God showed
Moshe a coin of fire to describe the kind he wanted
from the Jewish people. So the primary lesson here
is that money, like fire, can be used either to build or
destroy. God commands us to give a half shekel which
gives the second lesson. Too often we feel that possession
of wealth makes us complete. If we are affluent, we don?t
need anyone ? man or God. This is the greatest curse of
materialism ? the feeling that we need no one. Therefore,
we give a half shekel. Money never makes one complete.
One is only half a person with money.
For this reason our commentators tell us that the other half shekel
is supplied by God.
"What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more." - Seneca
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