Avodah Mailing List

Volume 36: Number 81

Wed, 04 Jul 2018

• 1. Re: AN INSTANCE OF THE 7th KIND OF CONTRADICTION IN THE MOREH NEVUCHIM (allan.en...@gmail.com)
• 2. Re: The Molad of Tamuz (Richard Fiedler)
• 3. Re: The Molad of Tamuz (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: AN INSTANCE OF THE 7th KIND OF CONTRADICTION IN THE MOREH NEVUCHIM (H Lampel)
• 5. Re: AN INSTANCE OF THE 7th KIND OF CONTRADICTION IN THE MOREH NEVUCHIM (Toby Katz)
• 6. Re: AN INSTANCE OF THE 7th KIND OF CONTRADICTION IN THE MOREH NEVUCHIM (Micha Berger)

On 4 July 2018 at 04:17, H Lampel via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org>
wrote:

> The Rambam built he case that accepting Aristotle's version of an eternal
> universe would topple the message of the Torah, repeatedly describing
> Creation ex nihilo a y'sod of the Torah, denial of which he declared
> heretical.
>


No, the Rambam said pretty much the opposite, that the theory of an eternal
world could fit into yahadus al pi sevara, but as we have the Torah
attesting to creation ex nihilo, then that is what happened and that is
what we believe.
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I presume that you believe the start of the Hebrew Calendar was in Hebrew Year 4119, or 358/9 CE by a Hillel be R? Yehuda.

The primary source would be a responsum of R Hai Gaon cited by R? Avarham ben Hiyya.

The source said, ??until the days of Hillel ben R? Yehuda, in the year 670
of the Seleucid era, from which year they did not bring forward or
postpone, but kept to this cycle which was at hand??

The Molad of Tishrei would be Saturday, 23 hours, and 233 chalakim. It can
shown from a book by Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community, A History of the
Jewish Calendar 2nd century BCE ? 10th century CE, that the 
Dehiyyah Molad Zaqen had yet to be implemented.

To be consistent over historical changes all my dates are shown in
Gregorian. The date of the Molad would be Sat, September 20, 358. The
conjunction would be Sat, September 20 at 21:56 Israel Standard time.

If you went down to your local planetarium and had them set their machine
on Jerusalem on the morning of September 20, 358 [Gregorian] you would find
the you could walk for an hour and a half before daybreak by the light of
the moon [old]. Rosh Hashanah would start that night.

The actual new moon would be seen Mon, September 22, 358 at 17:58.

One would think if I was starting a new calendar system, supplanting the
use of witnesses, that I would have started it Mon, September 22, 358 with
O hours and 0 chalakim.

Zero hours and zero chalakim occurred July 16, 791 BCE. The worldview of
the majority of the traditional Jewish world ? the view expressed by
Artscroll and in the web pages of Chabad and Aish HaTorah ? puts King
Solomon?s year of passing at 796 BCE. Shortly thereafter, the Kingdom of
Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the
South, split. 

On Wed, Jul 04, 2018 at 09:08:16PM +0300, Richard Fiedler wrote:
: I presume that you believe the start of the Hebrew Calendar was in
" Hebrew Year 4119, or 358/9 CE by a Hillel be R? Yehuda.

: The primary source would be a responsum of R Hai Gaon cited by R?
: Avarham ben Hiyya.

I thought I saw it in the She'iltos.

But we know it happened when Abayei was alive, since he deels with
the first generation of chutznikim who didn't know whether to keep 2
days. Hillel II was nasi during Abayei's last years. It fits the gemara.
But I was vague because if it wasn't Hillel II, it could habe been
someone earlier in Abayei's lifetime.

In any case. you seem to be ignoring the fact that the lunation is both
a chatoic system (as it's a 3 body problem) that has a strange attractor
for which we can only give a mean and approximations, and that the mean
is lengthening as the centuries go by.

The molad is a constant, but it is a progressively worse approximation
every century since Hillel II -- or Abayei. And every century you work
earlier from the 4th cent.

: One would think if I was starting a new calendar system, supplanting
: the use of witnesses, that I would have started it Mon, September 22,
: 358 with O hours and 0 chalakim.

: Zero hours and zero chalakim occurred July 16, 791 BCE. The worldview
: of the majority of the traditional Jewish world ? the view expressed by
: Artscroll and in the web pages of Chabad and Aish HaTorah ? puts King
: Solomon?s year of passing at 796 BCE. Shortly thereafter, the Kingdom
: of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem)
: in the South, split.

Rabbeinu Chananel says al pi re'iyah was always pro-forma, just part of
the maaseh mitzvah, and the date was always computed.

But if bayis rishon were /our/ calendar, there would be no sefeiqa deyoma
as Adar (or Adar II) and Elul are always 29 days, And there would be no
discussion of the possible dates of Shavuos, and Megillah 1:1 would be
shorter, as Purim could only fall out on Sun, Tue, Thu or Fri.

I don't udnderstand your second paragraph anyway, because I thought we
use Molad Tohu. Do you mean the first molad that happened to be at
0:00 and 0 chalaqim?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Problems are not stop signs,
mi...@aishdas.org        they are guidelines.
http://www.aishdas.org           - Robert H. Schuller
Fax: (270) 514-1507

>
>
> On 4 July 2018 at 04:17, H Lampel via Avodah <avo...@lists.aishdas.org 
> <mailto:avo...@lists.aishdas.org>> wrote:
>
>     The Rambam built the case that accepting Aristotle's version of an
>     eternal universe would topple the message of the Torah, repeatedly
>     describing Creation ex nihilo a y'sod of the Torah, denial of
>     which he declared heretical.
>
>
>
> No, the Rambam said pretty much the opposite, that the theory of an 
> eternal world could fit into yahadus al pi sevara, but as we have the 
> Torah attesting to creation ex nihilo, then that is what happened and 
> that is what we believe.

You're thinking of what he said about Plato's version of an eternal 
universe, wherein Hashem was always eternally generating the material 
from which He finally formed the universe.

> If, however, we accepted the Eternity of the Universe in accordance 
> with the second of the theories which we have expounded above (ch. 
> xxiii.), and assumed, with Plato, that the heavens are likewise 
> transient, we should not be in opposition to the fundamental 
> principles of our religion: this theory would not imply the rejection 
> of miracles, but, on the contrary, would admit them as possible. The 
> Scriptural text might have been explained accordingly, and many 
> expressions might have been found in the Bible and in other writings 
> that would confirm and support this theory. But there is no necessity 
> for this expedient, so long as the theory has not been proved. As 
> there is no proof sufficient to convince us, this theory need not be 
> taken into consideration, nor the other one: we take the text of the 
> Bible literally, and say that it teaches us a truth which we cannot 
> prove: and the miracles are evidence for the correctness of our view. 


 ?As far as Aristotle's version, that Hashem was always necessarily 
eternally generating the fully formed universe, based on His inability 
to change His Mind, which obviates the possibilities of miracles and 
reward and punishment...

> If, on the other hand, Aristotle had a proof for his theory, the whole 
> teaching of Scripture would be rejected, and we should be forced to 
> other opinions.

Zvi Lampel

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Another thing I forgot to mention is that according to Pirkei Avos,
the donkey's mouth (presumably means, its ability to speak) was one of
the things created on the Sixth Day just before Shabbos, along with the
sinkhole that swallowed Korach. (Was that also only a vision?) This
certainly seems to indicate the donkey was real, not just Bilam's
vision. For a donkey to speak in a dream requires no special alteration
of nature.

Also the donkey and the angel never exchanged any words. The donkey just
saw that there was something blocking its way, something that looked
like a man, I assume. Only Bilam and the donkey engaged in conversation,
and a most amusing conversation it was, I might add.

Oh and another thought. Bilam claimed to have the ability to destroy a
whole nation with the power of speech and yet he could not even boss
his donkey but had to hit it. This was supposed to embarrass him in
front of the bigshot muckety-mucks accompanying him, but if it was all
just a vision of his, then the other guys didn't even see anything,
and there was no embarrassment to Bilam. I guess you just can't combine
contradictory Shabbos table drashos. Pick one.

-Toby Katz
t6...@aol.com

On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 11:17:42PM -0400, H Lampel wrote:
: The Rambam built he case that accepting Aristotle's version of an
: eternal universe would topple the message of the Torah, repeatedly
: describing Creation ex nihilo a y'sod of the Torah, denial of which
: he declared heretical. So maybe what you mean to say is that Strauss
: preached that although the Rambam considered himself a heretic, he
: thought there's nothing wrong with being a heretic, because heresy
: was the truth....

I understood Strauss to be saying -- to the extent I understood him at
all -- that the Rambam didn't really believe it was heresy. Rather, this
was the real Judaism that the intelligensia always knew. Remember that
whenever the Rambam deals with a maamar chazal that doesn't work with
his Aristitilian Neo-Platonism is that it's a daas yachid. That the
main stream of Chazal really agree with his worldview.

Those claims of heresy were just there to scare the amei haaretz into
looking into ideas they'll misunderstand in heretical ways.

Now, what Strauss would do with Hilkhos Teshuvah and its definiition
of heresy is beyond me. And frankly, I don't care enough about his
opinion enough to bother figuring it out. Da mah lehashiv only justifies
so much...

: But regardless, it's not consistent with the facts or reason. The
: Rambam constantly depicted the masses as the ones who accepted
: Aristotle's eternity, and did not have the sophistication to see
: doing so contradicted their following the Torah....

He did? I thought that was the Perplexed intelligensia, the true
target audience of his book.

: As far as the Midrashim are concerned, it's the other way around.
: The Rambam points out that on their face they often /are/ heretical
: (as are many pesukim depicting Hashem as a physical entity) or
: otherwise unacceptable, and the masses accepted those literal
: meanings. The Rambam struggled to convince his audience that they
: required interpretation to remove the heresy and unacceptable
: literal meanings.

And, based on what I said above, Strauss would say that the Rambam
would say those hidden meanings include things like eternity of
the universe.

: >But my problem stands. Bil'am saw a real event, and therefore he saw his
: >donkey having a real exchange with an angel. No problems with Bil'am's
: >witnessing the exchange, but I don't understand how the Rambam explains
: >that exchange itself.
: >
: >However, the Rambam believes that nevu'ah comes from knowledge, and the
: >consequent connection to haSeikhel haPo'al / the Active Intellect. How
: >could the donkey have that exchange?

: Bilaam was not seeing an earthly donkey. He was seeing a seichel
: nivdal kind of donkey, which I would think is at home with other
: such entities and with whom it is able to communicate...

He saw his own donkey, though. It might have been the metaphisucal entity
(seikhel) behind his donkey, but the donkey refers to their longstanding
relationship.

Or to put it another way... The Lot the mal'akhim sawed was the real
Lot, not a seikhel nivdal kind of Lot.



On Wed, Jul 04, 2018 at 10:47:41AM -0400, H Lampel wrote:
:> No, the Rambam said pretty much the opposite, that the theory of
:> an eternal world could fit into yahadus al pi sevara, but as we
:> have the Torah attesting to creation ex nihilo, then that is what
:> happened and that is what we believe.

: You're thinking of what he said about Plato's version of an eternal
: universe, wherein Hashem was always eternally generating the
: material from which He finally formed the universe.

Which fits "yeish mei'ayin" -- yeish only exists because Hashem Wills
it out of the ayin. However, Hashem always existed, and doesn't change
His Mind, to He must always have been willing that yeish mei'ayin.

So G-d creates the world from nothingness, but in a way that causes
the whole chain of causality -- not in the manner of the first link in
that cian.

It has its logic. Or would, if "always" when we spoke of HQBH would mean
"across all of time" rather than "lemaalah min hazman". IOW, the timeline
too, in its full length is Willed into existence. Whatever that length
may be.

: As far as Aristotle's version, that Hashem was always necessarily
: eternally generating the fully formed universe, based on His
: inability to change His Mind, which obviates the possibilities of
: miracles and reward and punishment...

Actually, Plato has something similar, but only about hyle (chomer),
not the final tzuros.

The Rambam's attack on Aristo had more to do with A relying on
what we today would call the Law of Conversation of Matter[-Energy
lefi Einstein]. Or as Aristo put it, change is only in forms, not
substance. Denying yeish mei'ayin because he assume nature always holds,
even during Creation.

And that's why the theory implies a lack of miracles and sekhar va'onesh,
because it is based on believing nature always holds, and the Will of
G-d /is/ nature.

It is also addressed in the Rambam's statement about how no one can study
a living person and guess how it would live during gestation as a mashal
for trying to apply the way the world runs now to maaseh bereishis. But
that only addresses creation, not hashgachah.


:> If, on the other hand, Aristotle had a proof for his theory, the
:> whole teaching of Scripture would be rejected, and we should be
:> forced to other opinions.

To highlight something RZL and I agreed on in all previous iterations...
Note that the Rambam does not assume we would reinterpret Scripture
in contradiction to mesorah. Even though he just said he could fit the
words to the notion of eternity, even Arito's. The Rambam actually had
two criteria for accepting a rationalist explanation: that the
philosophy be sound, on a solid proof; and that the TSBP is consistent
with it. (Not necessarily supporting; just not definitivaly contradicting.)

Here is saying that if his grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolly; and
if Aristo had proved something that contradicted TSBP, we'd have to dump
Yahadus. Such a scenrio would disprove Judaism [the whole teaching of
Scripture], and thus was can take it for granted would be impossible.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             None of us will leave this place alive.
mi...@aishdas.org        All that is left to us is
http://www.aishdas.org   to be as human as possible while we are here.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Anonymous MD, while a Nazi prisoner



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