Avodah Mailing List

Volume 14 : Number 041

Monday, December 13 2004

• RE: Torah and Science
• Re: Three angels real or a vision?
• Re: Ono with a Heh or an Aleph
• FW: Josephus and Sanhedrin
• Re: Torah and Science
• RE: Torah and Allegory (Moreh Nevuchim on Science)
• RE: Torah and Allegory (Moreh Nevuchim on Science)

RHL

> To answer this, reflect on what one would say regarding the 
> "scientific
> thought" in those fields of science which taught and/or teach that
> premarital sex, masturbation and adultery are healthy, homosexuality
> is normal, and religion--even the religion of those who find ways to
> conform it to present-day "scientific" thought--is primitive. 
> Would one
> say we should reinterpret the Torah to fit these ideas? (It's 
> been done,
> you know.) I don't think anyone of us in these cases would insist that
> if you accept one scientific discipline you must accept the other,
> and for the following good reasons:

RHL mixes up two very separate issues.
If modern medicine were to say that "premarital sex, masturbation and adultery are healthy", etc, we could accept that as true statements about the biology.  That wouldn't change the fact that they are assur min hatorah.  That is the difference.  there is a difference between statements about what is true, and statements which contain a value judgement, where scientists will admit that they have no role. 

(parenthetically, in the shmona prakim, the rambam seems to classify hilchot arayot as  falling more in the category of religious rather than rational mitzvot - and therefore having a ta'ava for them is not a character defect, unlike having a ta'ava for murder - and therefore, there isn't even a torah mandated reason to think that these averot are intrinsically unhealthy or unnatural)

I would argue that it is, (in Yesahya lebovitz' phrase), impossible for a rational person not to know something that he knows.  If it is proven, then it is true - and real emuna should not be dependent on certain scientific theories being true or false. 

As in previous go ronunds, I am not aware of any rishon who specifically argues that emunah requires us to go against what our reason requires - and several (eg kuzari)explicitly state  that the torah does not require us to go against reason.

Meir Shinnar

The Bechhofers <ygb@aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Shabbos, quite by happenstance, I opened the Peirush of Reb Avraham
> ben HaRambam al HaTorah and subsequently decided to see what he says
> about Yaakov's vision of the Sar of Esav (the other issue, the Malachim
> and Avraham Avinu, is missing from the ms. from which the Peirush was
> published). I have scanned it and sent it as a .pdf to Micha to post.
> [See <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/rabhrmbmNevuah.pdf>. -mi] The
> issue is discussed and explained explicitly - a vision is no different
> from "reality." It is certainly not an "allegory."

Um, "allegory" man dchar shmeih? I don't recall anyone here claiming
that any angel story is an allegory.

Also, I don't see how the perush supports your statement that a vision
is no different from "reality", (though maybe I'm misunderstanding why
you put "reality" in quotes). R' Avraham seems to be saying that Yaacov's
vision was *not* like reality, but like an extraordinarily vivid dream.
He explicitly compares it to an ordinary dream, only much more so.
This is actually far less than what we've been talking about - we've
been assuming what RMB wrote in MmD, that nevuah-visions take place in
reality, but on a non-physical plane, that can't be seen with ordinary
eyes; R Avraham here, however, seems to say that the whole story took
place only in Yaacov's imagination.

[Email #2. -mi]

"Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>> Yes, something happening
>>'in a vision' doesn't mean it's just imaginary, hypothetical, made up;
>>it is actually and really happening, just not on the physical plane. But
>>to an observer watching a navi having a vision, all that can be seen is
>>a man having what appears to be an epileptic fit or something (cf the
>>episode when Shaul meets the bnei hanevi'im)....

> I think this is a false assumption. Yes, the Rambam says that a navi other
> than Moshe Rabbeinu needed to prepare him- or herself for the nevu'ah.
> However, he does not necessarily hold that nevu'ah comes during a trance.

> I think that assuming that Lot was able to walk around and do things
> while using six senses (the 5 usual plus nevu'ah) is would better fit
> the Abarbanel's portrayal of the Rambam's opinion.

"When there is a prophet among you, I appear to him in a vision, I speak
to him in a dream".

"And all of them, when they experience prophecy, their limbs shake and
the strength of their bodies is feeble, and their senses are deranged,
and the mind remains empty in order to understand what it sees. As it is
said about Avraham: "and a dread, a great darkness, was falling on him",
and about Daniel: "and my grace turned into destruction, and I kept no
strength". (Rambam Yesodei Hatorah 7:5)

"The second difference is that a vision only comes to an ordinary prophet
during sleep...or by day, after a trance (tardemah) descends on him,
in a state where all his senses stop functioning, and his thought is
emptied as in sleep..." "The third difference is that when a visoin
comes to an ordinary prophet...his strength weakens and his body goes
to pieces (mitchalchel) and a strong fear descends on him as if he is
going to die..." (Rambam PhM Sanhedrin 11)

Also see Shaul, who, when he got nevuah, suddenly took off his clothes
and had a fit, implying that a nevuah is not compatible with walking
around and seeing the physical reality through the ordinary 5 senses.

 -- 
Zev Sero
zev@sero.name

Yitzchak Zirkind:
> In a message dated 12/8/2004 9:06:44am EST, schoemann@lucent.com writes:
>> In Mo Oshiv it's written Aleph Nun Hey and in "Ono haShem" it's Aleph
>> Nun Aleph.
>> What does it mean in Mo Oshiv? I can't seem to work it out.

> The  Minchas Shai discusses this 116:16.

Don't have peirushim here at the office, but off the top of my head,
if we read "Ono" in Mo Oshiv as "l'an", as in the Biblical kumetz-heh
suffix corresponding to the "l'" prefix, I would read it as:

Where shall I, Your servant, go to fulfill my nedarim, to give todos?
In the courtyards of the House of God, in the midst of Jerusalem. zsh:
command not found: Fmt

   - jon baker    jjbaker@panix.com     <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -

My father writes the following with respect to the issue of whether
Sadducees participated in the Sanhedrin:

 ----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Louis Feldman 

	The translation of Antiquities 15.4 is not accurate: The correct
translation is: "This Pollio had once, when Herod was being judged for
death, reproaching, had foretold to Hyrcanus and those judging that if
Herod were saved, he would persecute them all." There is no indication
that Hyrcanus was among those passing judgment. The word "other" does
not appear.
	As to whether Sadducees were members of the Sanhedrin, there is
a great deal of dispute as to whether there was one or two or more
Sanhedrins and what their jurisdiction was. See the Anchor Bible
Dictionary, s.v. "Sanhedrin" and the many books on Sanhedrin.It seems
that many scholars follow George Foot Moore, Judaism, vol. 1, p. 85:
"In the Sanhedrin were, therefore, to the end, a strong, if not the
predominating party." As evidence he cites Mark 14:53 and several
other passages, all of them from the New Testament. It is not clear
which Sanhedrin is referred to in these passages, which mention that
the Sanhedrin is presided over by the high priest. Josephus, who, in
his youth (Life 10), gained personal experience of the several sects of
Jews, including the Sadducees, is not quoted by Moore on the question
of the participation of the Sadducees in the Sanhedrin. In fact, even
though he was a priest and gives a list of the high priests, Josephus
mentions only one, Ananus (Ant. 20.199), who was a Sadducee and who,
he says, convened the judges of the Sanhedrin, an act which apparently
(20.202) he had no authority to do without the consent of the procurator.
Josephus (Ant. 18.17) indicates that the Sadducees were but few in number,
though they included men of the highest standing. He adds (ibid.):
"Whenever they assume some office, though they submit unwillingly and
perforce, yet submit they do to the formulas of the Pharisees, since
otherwise the masses would not tolerate them."

	All good wishes.
	Louis Feldman

<hlampel@thejnet.com> wrote:
> R' Harry Maryles <hmaryles@yahoo.com> (Thu, 2 Dec 2004) asked:
>> Why is it that when it comes to practical applications of scientific
>> knowledge, we so totally rely on it that we virtually bet our lives
>> on that knowledge? If science can be so wrong, how is it Halachicly
>> permissible to ever board an aircraft? How can we ever undergo open
>> heart surgery if scientists may be wrong? After all, there are respected
>> scientists who quarrel with established medical practices all the time.

>  reflect on what one would say regarding the "scientific
> thought" in those fields of science which taught and/or teach that
> premarital sex, masturbation and adultery are healthy, homosexuality
> is normal, and religion--even the religion of those who find ways to
> conform it to present-day "scientific" thought--is primitive. Would one
> say we should reinterpret the Torah to fit these ideas? (It's been done,
> you know.) 

Have I ever said that we have to fit the Torah to accommodate science
Chas V'Shalom? That isn't at all what I am saying. We are not talking
about the observance or violation of Mitzvos in the light of scientific
knowledge as in the examples you cite. We are talking about looking at
scientific data and trying to understand how the Torah's narrative is
reconciled with it. If there is a preponderance of evidence accumulated
by various different disciplines that all point to a universe that is
older than 5765 years, and there are valid Chazalic, Rishonic, and
Achronic interpretations to allow for an older universe why must we
reject such interpretations in favor of the less rational explanation
of a young universe? If we can find sources in Chazal that allow for
creation days to be Godly days) and not earthly days (i.e... one Godly
day equals 1000 earthly years according to the Tifferes Yisrael) we have
already extended creation beyond 6000 years by at least an additional 6000
years. Once you have broken that threshold, you can evaluate scientific
evidence that the universe is even older than that if there is various
Mesorah to corroborate it. That the universe is 15 billion years old is
the conclusion to which R Aryeh Kaplan came using precisely that method.

HM

R. Meir Shinnar wrote (v14:36)
> WRT to the second proof from ch 17, RZL is, IMHO, mistaking a fundamental
> issue. The rambam is trying to prove, according to Aristotelian science,
> that there is no inherent contradiction, and, according to aristotelian
> science,one can not learn from the existent to the preexistent.
> Therefore, the current apparently eternal state of the world does not
> prove that it is eternal - and there is no contradiction between our
> current knowledge of the world and the torah.

> Current science poses a fundamentally different question - it does not
> deny change in the existence of different heavenly bodies and nature on
> earth - but it proves that there were earlier stages. The rambam argues
> that one can not predict embryological development from a fully formed
> human - but not that one can not study the embryos- and that is precisely
> what is done today in science. 

Whether science is (a) studying actual "embryos"; (b) under embryonic
law -- is to assume precisely what has to be proved. I believe that
RMS's position ignores the crux of the Rambam's argument.

The first supposition (minor to my point) is already a leap of faith.
Haeckel's drawings of embryos to illustrate recapitulation ("ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny") has been mindlessly recycled up to recent
times by a Nobel prize winner (Watson), a president of the NAS (Alberts),
a famous highly touted anti-creationist in a graduate text on evolution
(Futuyma 1998), and in a recent National Geographic article on Darwinism
(2004). Darwin used Haeckel's drawings to demonstrate that we can know
from unimpeachable experimental observations now of the vast similarities
of the early embryos of widely differing species (e.g. fish and humans)
what their common ancestor looked like at much earlier times. We can
literally observe ancient "embryos" now!

However, in 1997, Science Magazine reported the findings of an
international team of embryologists that: "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud
Rediscovered" (277:1435). What is amazing about this fraud is:

(1) It was supposed to be based on experimental evidence, the sina qua
non of science.
(2) Darwin considered it "the strongest single class of facts in favour"
of his theory.
(3) The fraud was mindlessly and unsuspectingly recycled by the greatest
biologists as experimental fact (the few who were aware of the fraud
mostly kept quiet).

How amazing that the strongest piece of highly touted experimental
evidence for evolution turned out to be a fraud, perpetuated right under
the nose of our best scientists.

And yet, chashuva chevra on Avodah, with my greatest respect due to
all of them ("kevodam munach bemekomam"), are willing to state, IIRC,
about such theories (evolution, and the age of the universe etc.) that
the evidence is "incontrovertible" (RNS), we have no reason to doubt
the evidence (RYZ), and that there is "massive evidence" (RHM) -- this,
despite the fact that we now have a variety of examples that illustrate
the danger of inferring from what we see now to how what we see came
into being in the first place.

And that brings me to the major point (see (b) above). Suppose we are
looking at actual embryos (a sheer assumption). But, as the Rambam states,
natural law was only fixed after Maaseh Beraishis. This also means that
we have no idea what the initial conditions were when these laws were
put into place after the seven days, making all backward extrapolations
suspect.

We have the famous example (discussed recently in detail on Avodah)
of current speculations about the speed of light. It's a good example
because the scientific speculation is so recent and putatively involves
a huge swing in deeply held scientific theories. The law at work now (a
"sacrosanct" constant speed) may not have been at work when the stars
were first formed (as "embryos"), as the speed of light may have been
orders of magnitude faster. Eddington, based on current observations,
made the mistake of thinking that it would be virtually "impossible"
for the speed of light to vary. Had he read the MN, he never would have
fallen into that trap!

The Rambam provides an example of the errors involved in drawing
inferences from the fully formed adult back to the embryo. He states
that you may come to a tremendous confusion -- you might infer that
"things that must exist become impossible in your opinion" (II:17) --
recall Eddington's blunder. How could the embryo live while in the womb
surrounded by amniotic fluid and a "thick vessel"? It would be impossible
for the baby to breathe, and without breathing it is impossible for it
to live. We mistakenly infer from the way nature operates today to how
nature operated at the genesis of the embryo.

But we know that such inferences are incorrect. The baby indeed is able
to live and obtain oxygen from the umbilical cord, but under circumstances
totally different than what applies to the fully formed adult.

Thus, even if we grant that we are observing an "embryo", but we observe
it under laws that apply now, not under the laws (or miracles) that were
at work at its genesis. It may very well be that what we observe now is
merely the natural growth and decay of entities under laws applicable
after the seven days of creation. What was at work during creation itself
is a deep mystery except for what is revealed to us by the devar Hashem.

---
The message of the Yavanim was that nature is all and man is the measure
of all things (Protagoras). It seems to me that the message of the
lights of Chanukahs, the zman we are currently in, is to see that there
is a transcendental Creator, the author and constant Guide of creation,
and that the apparent absoluteness of nature is merely a figment of the
imagination ("hamehadesh betuvo bechol yom maaseh beraishis").

A lichtige channuka.   
KT. JSO

---
(I am aware that "teva" does have some reality as the regular "ratzon
Hashem" and does play a role in mitzvos, halacha and life itself; my
point in the last remark above is that it is not the absolute entity of
chochmas chitzonius)

Jonathan Ostroff <jonathan@yorku.ca> wrote:
> Science Magazine reported the findings of an
> international team of embryologists that: "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud
> Rediscovered" (277:1435). What is amazing about this fraud is:
...
> How amazing that the strongest piece of highly touted experimental
> evidence for evolution turned out to be a fraud, perpetuated right under
> the nose of our best scientists.

> And yet, chashuva chevra on Avodah, with my greatest respect due to
> all of them ("kevodam munach bemekomam"), are willing to state, IIRC,
> about such theories (evolution, and the age of the universe etc.) that
> the evidence is "incontrovertible" (RNS), we have no reason to doubt
> the evidence (RYZ), and that there is "massive evidence" (RHM)...

That there is now evidence of fraud perpetrated by some evolutionary
scientists does not mean that any and all evidence that disputes
preconceived religious notions is false as well. It is far to easy to say
for example that the fundamental technique of carbon dating was altered
by the Mabul thus making such techniques unreliable pre-Mabul. I'm not
saying it isn't a possible explanation, but to constantly use explanations
like these to explain away inconsistencies between pre-conceived religious
notions and science is an exercise in apologetics.

I repeat my question that you have yet to answer. If there is precedent
(ala The Tifferes Yisrael) to say that the six days of creation were
not earthly days but Godly days which are equivalent to six thousand
additional years over and above the 5765 years YOU say is the age of the
universe... and there is ample (if not massive) scientific evidence to
support an older universe, why do you continue to cling to the notion of
a less than 6000 year old universe? Why dismiss is absolutely incorrect
those like R. Aryeh Kaplan who have come to a different conclusion than
you have?

> We have the famous example (discussed recently in detail on Avodah)
> of current speculations about the speed of light. It's a good example
> because the scientific speculation is so recent and putatively involves
> a huge swing in deeply held scientific theories. The law at work now (a
> "sacrosanct" constant speed) may not have been at work when the stars
> were first formed (as "embryos"), as the speed of light may have been
> orders of magnitude faster. 

Even if it is true that the speed of light was orders of magnitude
faster, it is unreasonable to conclude that the light we now see in
an exploding star that is estimated to have taken a million years to
travel to earth ...be reduced to being less than 6000 years old. We can
reduce the time it takes us to see it but, how much reduction can there
be? Are you saying that the order of magnitude of the speed of light was
so great during the creation that it traveled what we now believe to be
a distance taking 1 million years of time to literally a split second
plus 5765 years? I suppose you CAN say that but it is an unreasonable
assumption based only on the need to fit in a physical reality to a
pre-conceived religious notion.

I respect your obvious superior knowledge of science. You seem to have
at your fingertips tremendous amounts of scientific knowledge. But you
have yet to prove your assertion that all of the scientific evidence
countering your notions of creation is absolutely false.

> The message of the Yavanim was that nature is all and man is the measure
> of all things (Protagoras). It seems to me that the message of the
> lights of Chanukahs, the zman we are currently in, is to see that there
> is a transcendental Creator, the author and constant Guide of creation,

I do not think there is any member of Areivim that would Chas V'Shalom
say otherwise.

> and that the apparent absoluteness of nature is merely a figment of the
> imagination ("hamehadesh betuvo bechol yom maaseh beraishis").

How Berkelian of you. If you are saying that there is no physical reality,
than of course everything goes. No need to rely on scientific discovery.
But if there is a physical universe one must deal with the facts as
they are discovered. God created the physical universe Yesh MeAyin
in one incredible moment. It was a "Big Bang". From there flowed a
process guided by God mentioned in a cryptic way in Parshas Bereishis
that resulted in where we stand today. The details of that process have
yet to be fully understood but in my humble opinion, there was... and
continues to be a process.

HM

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


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