Avodah Mailing List

Volume 14 : Number 047

Thursday, December 23 2004

• RE: Torah and Science
• Re: Three angels real or a vision?
• Authenticity of the Zohar
• Re: Authenticity of Zohar
• Re: Authenticity of the Zohar
• Hagbahat haTorah to Three "Dapim"
• Re: Torah and Science
• Re: Torah and Science
• Re: Torah and Science
• Re: Torah and Science
• Re: Torah and Allegory (Moreh Nevuchim on Science)
• Re: Three angels real or a vision?
• Igros Moshe Question
• Re: Kabbalah and Ikkarim
• Re: Kabbalah and Ikkarim
• Re: Yisrael
• Re: Three angels real or a vision?

RMB:
...
> So, I find both extremes worrisome. I have major problems with an
> epistomology that places scientific proof on such a pedestal that the role
> of mesorah reduced to the gaps in our scientific understanding. That's
> the pagan role of religion, to explain the scary not-yet-understood world
> around them. It's the notion of religion one would find charicatured in
> places like Scientific America's "The Skeptic" column.

> However, I'm also bothered the equal and opposite reaction. The mesorah
> does support options other than saying science is exploring a false
> history, or that it's simply wrong. The full spectrum of Torah throught on
> the subject is far more complex and subtle. Taking a simple and extreme
> stand may be a comforting way to deal with challenge, but digging in
> one heels when unnnecessary won't produce emes.

I think that you misunderstand my perception of the role of religion -
which is I think closer to the heart of the mesora. That is, the primary
aspect of religion from the mesora is to give us values and obligations.
It is not a knowledge base - even though the mesora has some knowledge
base that motivates and governs the values and obligations it gives.
To give primacy to the knowledge that is presumed part of the mesora -
rather than to the motivations behind the knowledge - is to misunderstand
the role of knowledge in the mesora. The Scientific American "The
Skeptic" is dealing with a more Christian perspective - where knowledge
rather than obligations play a primary role - and to assume that such
knowledge is a primary part of the mesora is, IMHO, reflects the invasion
of foreign values.

This is especially true, as what the knowledge base the mesora gives
us is, as your second paragraph acknowledges, by no means certain and
subject to debate within the mesora.

It therefore isn't that science gives us absolute knowledge - something
that mortals don't have - but it is currently the best knowledge that we
humans can have barring direct revelation - and the mesora tells us that
the meaning of the direct revelation we have is subject to interpretation
by our reason - and therefore the mesora tells us to accept science.
The assumption that the mesora has a clear voice that reflects revelation
on most of the issues of knowledge reflects more on the desires of the
person for certainty, and even an arrogance klape ma'ala - rather than
reflecting the mesora. We should be glad for that we got the torah,
without demanding (and assuming) that hashem also taught us science...

Therefore, it isn't that mesora fills in gaps in scientific understanding,
but rather, the mesora is fundamentally uninterested in the issues of
the age of the universe - but only in the lesson to be learned from
hashem's creation of the world. While there is a natural desire to fill
in the gaps, and we have sources that fill in the gaps - it is a mistake
to view them as ikkar mesora, or even reflecting, in their pshat sense,
a true mesora.

Meir Shinnar

From: <T613K@aol.com>
> Yes, Hashem's appearing to Avraham had to be in  a vision, but why do the
> three angels also have to be a vision?

I thought this whole thread was an attempt to explain the Rambam.  The 
Rambam believed that angels don't have bodies, and, consequently, whenever 
the Biblical narrative contains angels it can't be telling straightforward 
history of events.

[Email #2. -mi]

From: <T613K@aol.com>
> If Avraham, not Lot, saw angels, how did it happen that Lot and two f his
> daughters left Sedom while the other two did not?  How did it happen  that
> Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt--or did this also happen only in
> Avraham's vision?  What about Lot's two daughters and the conception of 
> Amon and Moav?

The seam is when Avraham woke up (19:27). All of the miracles happened
before then (including Mrs. Lot turning into a pillar of salt).
The births of Moav and Amon happened after that. Lot and his two
daughters survived. We don't know how. We presume all the others
(including Mrs. Lot) died as the city was destroyed. We do not know
the mechanism of either their deaths or of the city's destruction.

> No matter where you try to put the seam and say, "From here on, it's 
> real, until here, it's vision," you will have problems.

But certain problems concerned the Rambam more than others (mainly events 
contrary to scientific law), and those are resolved.

David Riceman 

I should like to point out that most academic objections to RSBY being
the sole author rest on the language of the text. Apparently the text
mixes Western Aramaic (as found in EI) and Eastern Aramaic (as found in
Bavel) hence academics posit it must be of later origin when these two
dialects had merged together. I have suggested Moses deLeon edited and
published a collection of various kuntres that originated with RSBY and
later went through several oral and written editions without trying to
edit them into a uniform grammar. This hypothesis has met with respect
if not approval by at least one leading academic.

Z Yaakov Wise
School of Arts, Histories & Cultures, University of Manchester, UK

In a Sefer named Aderes Eliyohu para.10 he discusses this to defend
the authenticity of the Zohar from the sefer Vikuach Al Chochmas
Hakabolo and he says "Concerning those evil and deceitful men that
went after their evil hearts, who substantiated and excepted the lies
that were brought deceitfully in the first print of Sefer Yuchosin,
that were fabricated by R. Yitzchol Dmin Acu Z"L and R. Dovid Rogun
and a mother and daughter -to go against the Tzadik etc. Maharam Di
Liun.
Now, -he continues- if the story in Sefer Yuchosin is true then the
great rabbis of that generation would have investigated the witnesses
with all the Chakiros and Bedikos that such a great matter deserves,
and then -as Batei Dinim in all places do- publicize the truth.
However, the sage R. Shmuel Shulem who printed the Sefer Yuchasin in
Constantina wrote: 'see for yourself the foolishness of those who
speak against a Tzadik...' and even the author of Vikuach Al Chochmas
Hakabolo agrees that Maharam Di Liun did not forge the Sefer Hazohar
and that the story in Sefer Hayuchasin is false.
kol tuv
meir zirkind

> I should like to point out that most academic objections to RSBY being
> the sole author rest on the language of the text. Apparently the text
> mixes Western Aramaic (as found in EI) and Eastern Aramaic (as found in
> Bavel) hence academics posit it must be of later origin when these two
> dialects had merged together. I have suggested Moses deLeon edited and
> published a collection of various kuntres that originated with RSBY and
> later went through several oral and written editions without trying to
> edit them into a uniform grammar. This hypothesis has met with respect
> if not approval by at least one leading academic.

I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but wasn't there a computational
linguistic analysis that showed that the similarity between the
Zohar's language and that of RMdL's (other) works was too great to be a
coincidence? (Similar analyses were made of the Russian "Song of Igor"
which showed similarities to the language of Musin-Pushkin who claimed to
have discovered it in 1795, more than 600 years after it had purportedly
been written.)

Lipman Phillip Minden

In Orach Chayim 132:2 the mechaber writes: "Mareh pnei ktivat sefer-Torah
la'am haOmdim le'yimino veli'smolo" - "show the face of the writing
of the Sefer Torah to the people who are standing to his right and to
his left". On this the Mishnah Berurah writes: (sk 8) "The person who
lifts the sefer Torah to show the people should roll it to three "dapin"
and lift it, and it is possible that this is specifically three (Magen
Avraham). And it seems to me that it depends on the koach of the lifter
that it is within his ability to lift when it is rolled so much".

When I first saw this I thought that 3 "dapin" must mean that parts of
three sections of klaf shoudl be showing (thus there would be two tefirot
showing). However, it was recently pointed out to me that elsewhere
in the Shulchan Aruch, "dapin" is standard lexicon for a column of
text in the Sefer Torah (and "yeriyah" is the term for a section of
klaf). So according to this, the MB must mean that when doing hagbahah
a person should first unroll so that exactly three columns of text are
showing. However, if this is the case, why does the MB add (what seems to
be his chiddush as it does not show up in the Magen Avraham) "And it seems
to me that it depends on the koach of the lifter that it is within his
ability to lift when it is rolled so much". Is three columns so much that
such a disclaimer is necessary? Isnt three columns of text showing in
the sefer Torah during hagbahah normal? Why does the MB add in this line?

Thanks,
Yaakov Ellis
-- 
url: http://ellisweb.net/aliyah/
email: yellis@gmail.com

In  Avodah V14 #44 dated 12/22/2004, RMB writes:
[R'n  Ilana Sober:]
>: When the narrator announced in a confident
>: and authoritative  voice that the sun was formed from the debris of a
>: supernova, my  eight-year-old turned to my five-year-old and whispered,
>: "This part is  not true. Hashem created the sun." 
>: I hope she will always maintain that  basic assumption that what the Torah
>: says is true...., She will iyH become more sophisticated in her
>: understanding....

> We should teach our children that Torah provides the bedrock and it's
> science that must be accomodated.....

> It's great if one could inculcate that ranking at a young age. But to
> do it by giving the child pat overly simplistic answers sets up a good
> number of them for failure.... not an approach to emes I could want to
> encourage in my children....

> What's so terrible  with telling your child "I don't know" or "I don't
> fully understand"? Isn't  that better than making up an answer to
> hold them off until later?

First of all, I want to point out that the placement of a single
apostrophe can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Above, you
wrote "It's science that must be accommodated." If you intended to write
it as you did--"It is science that must be accommodated"--then you have
said something that sounds strange to me. Science MUST be accommodated
when it seems to conflict with Torah?

If, OTOH, you intended to write "Its science must be accommodated"--i.e.,
the science of the Torah must be accommodated--then a single misplaced
apostrophe has changed the meaning of your entire sentence. For now,
I am assuming the first option, and will respond accordingly.

Second of all:

The reason for R' Micha's objection to R'n Ilana's approach eludes me.
To teach a very young child "Hashem made the sun"--that is not emes?!

The details can be filled in later. Ilana did say about her child,
"She will become more sophisticated in her understanding." By adding
"IY'H", she indicated that she considers sophisticated understanding to
be A Good Thing.

But meanwhile, her children are only 8 and 5 years old!

For young children--and even for us sophisticated adults--is "Hashem made
the sun" really a *simplistic* answer?! It may be an incomplete answer,
but I submit that it is the very essence of emes.

 "I don't know HOW exactly He created the sun" would be a reasonable thing
to say to a child of any age. But just "I don't know"--is that Torah?
As if it were an open question whether the sun was created or came into
being through random processes?

Will you also hold off teaching Sefer Bereishis until the child can
understand it in a sophisticated way? "Hashem created the heavens and
the earth." Sounds simplistic to me.

Perhaps Torah should never be taught at all until a child is old enough
to peruse the Avodah archives.

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

On Wed, Dec 22, 2004 at 04:04:41PM -0500, T613K@aol.com wrote:
: The reason for R' Micha's objection to R'n Ilana's approach eludes me.
: To teach a very young child "Hashem made the sun"--that is not emes?!

The older (of the two mentioned) Sober child was quoted as saying,
"This part is not true. Hashem created the sun." The latter sentence
is emes. It's the reisha that I feel is not. If RnIS hopes to explain
someday that both could be true, then she does not agree with that
denial.

To teach a child that Hashem made the sun to the exclusion of even the
possibility that He did so from the debris of a supernova is not what
you or I believe to be teaching emes. (RZL aside, for the moment.)

: The details can be filled in later....

Right. Better to say, "it could have somehow been from the debris, but
I don't know how." Or to say "some rishonim believe it could have been,
and some not -- the whole thing is complicated and even the greatest of
the gedolim aren't sure". And then you can explain the complication later.

There is a difference between teaching as much as the child can understand
and teaching something you yourself don't believe is true because you
don't think the child can comprehend the truth.

As for the confusion in my earlier post, I meant to write "We should teach
our children that Torah provides the bedrock and it's science that must
do the accomodating." The problem wasn't the apostrophe; I'm not likely to
speak of the Torah's science. It was a total miswrite of the last clause.

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha@aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Sun, Dec 19, 2004 at 02:16:08PM -0500, Leonid Portnoy wrote:
: That's not correct. It only implies that you can not use current
: observations to extrapolate backwards into the past. You can, however,
: use current observations to exrapolate into the future...

What about using scientific method to make predictions about what relics
of the past you expect to find in the future?

Isn't that what the sciences involved set out to do?

The historical explanation is the theory that justifies those predictions
of future experimental results, not the experimental reuslts themselves.

On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 04:55:46PM -0500, Shinnar, Meir wrote:
: The results of medicine and surgery (and technology and physics -eg
: Maxwell's equations) are predicated on a certain methodology - rather than
: on the field. It is the accpetance of that methodology in one area, while
: the rejection of it in others - not because of fundamental epistemological
: issues, but other issues - that is the issue. I differentiate between
: good and bad science - not on the content.

I would say the same thing about good and bad Torah.

While I realize that RSM doesn't actually have the attitude I imputed
to people who create new shitos to fit the science, the methodology he
uses would naturally lead down that path. It requires an act of will to
use the methodology WRT ma'aseh bereishis, the mabul or migdal Bavel but
to reject the same methodology when used to argue against the number of
Yotz'ei Mitzrayim, the makkos, qeri'as Yam Suf, in short -- history from
Moshe Rabbeinu to Shaul haMelekh.

If the methodology produces bad Torah, it's obviously flawed even when
producing acceptable results.

In the terms I wrote in my previous post: A god-of-the-gaps approach is
flawed, even if one is careful when to reduce His role to the gaps in
our understanding, and when not.

 -mi

 -- 
Micha Berger             The purely righteous do not complain about evil,
micha@aishdas.org        but add justice , don't complain about heresy,
http://www.aishdas.org   but add faith, don't complain about ignorance,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but add wisdom.     - R AY Kook, Arpilei Tohar

From: "Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer" <frimea@mail.biu.ac.il>
> R. Moshe Turetsky  (Shu"t Yashiv Moshe YD Hilkhot Sakana,  no. 1 p. 158)
> writes in the name of HaRav Elyoshiv shlita, that smoking is o.k. for Jews.
> This is because most of the research in the health dangers of smoking was
> done on non Jewish bodies, so it may not be dangerous for Jews. However he
> wants to say, that this applies only to Jews that eat kosher food, but the
> bodies of Jews that eat non kosher food, are the same as the bodies of non
> Jews.

A. I would like to know when R' Turetsky heard this.

B. This still doesn't answer the question of 2nd hand smoking.
Is it permitted for a jew to smoke even if there are/may be
non-jews/non-kosher-eating-jews present who are not "protected".
Wouldn't there be a question of Mazik of some sort?

Shoshana L. Boublil

On Sat, Dec 18, 2004 at 09:19:14PM -0500, Jonathan Ostroff wrote:
: What I did say was that the "apparent absoluteness of nature is merely
: a figment of the imagination". Do you disagree? [See below]

Yes, I disagree that the Rambam believes that. He describes nature as an
emanation from G-d in Yesodei haTorah peraqim 1 and 2 and MN II ch 49,
as you cite. However, all of absolute reality short of G-d has this
contingency -- it doesn't equate to being non-absolute.

In the Moreh that you cite (I ch 69) he shows that the G-d-as-Maker
and G-d-as-Agent perspectives are identical. (He does this because of
a weird accident. Averroes, who translated Aristotle to Arabic, thought
that Plotinus's Enneads were by Aristotle. The Rambam therefore thought
that Aristotle believed in both the First Cause and Emanationism. The
latter is really neoPlatonism.)

In the Rambam's thought, nature is a nivrah. So, that is either a
hypostasis emanated, or an object manufactured by G-d. Absolute in
either case.

Either that, or you would have to also say that the existance of people
is not absolute, and the definiteness of your own existance is only a
figment as well.

 -mi

 -- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha@aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter

On Mon, Dec 20, 2004 at 12:55:13PM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
: No. According to the Rambam's opinion as understood by the Abarbanel
: we know nothing of what Lot experienced. We know that Avraham saw a
: prophetic vision which included scenes of Lot interacting with angels.
: How to interpret such a prophetic vision is a major subject of the MN,
: but I think it's clear that the Rambam would not have expected each
: detail of Avraham's vision to be reenacted literally in Lot's life.
: Avraham, not Lot, saw angels.

You have yet to acknowledge (or prove I misunderstood) another part of
Abarbanel's explanation of the Rambam's position. Even if Avraham saw
the whole thing, it was not then reennacted -- he saw how events played
out in heaven while Lot experienced them on earth.

Although, I realize it's now possible that Avraham saw an interaction
between the two mal'akhim who arrived in Sedom with that associated with
Lot (the mal'akh/im, perhaps, responsible for the hashgachah minis over
Amon and Amo'av).

This would obviate the problem that RZS raised for me when he showed
that the Rambam limited prophecy to only occuring while indisposed. It
removes the demand that Lot physically interacted (was saved by them)
with beings he couldn't see while able to interact with them.

 -mi

 -- 
Micha Berger             When faced, with a decision, ask yourself,
micha@aishdas.org        "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
http://www.aishdas.org   at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

I believe there's a teshuva in Igros Moshe that says that a choson
should davka not go to shul during sheva berachos so as not to deprive
the tzibur of the opportunity to say tachanun. Mar'eh makom, anyone (RDE)?

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 01:49:41PM -0500, MPoppers@kayescholer.com wrote:
: Sounds like you're framing it in Kashrus (e.g. grasshopper or turkey)
: terms....

Not at all!

There are two possibilities: 1- there was no Yekkish minhag to ever say
berikh shemei; and 2- there once was such a minhag and then, in response
to Shabbetai Zvi, it was taken out.

The grasshopper or turkey question would be taking the parallel of #1,
no minhag, and assuming it automatically translates to a minhag not to.
However, I'm suggesting lehefech -- no minhag means no minhag, but it's
possible that the current lack of Berikh Shemei in Yekkish minhag was
the product of #2, the active decision not to say it.

:                    Just because Minhag Ashknaz never included Zoharic
: passages in nusach hat'fila doesn't mean there's a mesorah to never,
: ever utter them aloud as part of a tzibbur.....

Agreed, if the history was one of never including, then there is
no mesorah that one must exclude. In this sentence you're denying a
combination of the history of #1 and the halachic outcome of #2 --
something I do not assert.

:                             What's the din if a Yekke (who, as per the SA
: [OC 125:1], doesn't say the "n'qadaish" phrase but rather hears it said
: by the sha'tz') is saying a "n'qadaish" q'dushah as part of a non-Yekke
: minyan (e.g., the regular Shabbos Mincha minyan at the JEC of Elizabeth)
: -- isn't he a PmhTz if he noticeably doesn't say "n'qadaish"? ...

There are two issues, the first is perishah min hatzibbur (PmhTz),
the second is lo sisgodedu (LS). I would think that noticability is an
issue of LS. However, why are we assuming that skipping Berikh Shemei
is noticable?

:        and I think one can extrapolate from there to other aspects of
: the nusach, such as "brich shmai," especially as many such aspects are
: more noticeable than saying ( b'lachash, naturally ;-)) or not saying
: one phrase before the main part of the Q'dushah.

I don't get this, as I have no idea why anyone would be watching your
lips to see what you mumble.

I therefore saw the question as one of PmhTz, which I'm defining as
being different for no good reason. Whether or not anyone else knows.

In which case, if Yekkes simply never said BSh, then being silent
in a minyan that is saying BSh would be PmhTz. But if your ancestors
intentionally removed it, you have a good reason and if you can avoid
LS, PmhTz shouldn't be an issue.

Similarly, if Yekkes never said "neqadeish" it would be PmhTz to skip it --
if the rest of the minyan doesn't know, their ignorance avoids LS, not
PmhTz. There is no need for an assertion that it would or wouldn't be
noticed. The example you're trying to extrapolate from could well be a
case of "never had a minhag" rather than "made a point to remove". Judging
from the SA, that seems more likely, anyway. In which case, how does that
say anything about Bsh, in the "made a point to remove" scenario?

-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             The purely righteous do not complain about evil,
micha@aishdas.org        but add justice , don't complain about heresy,
http://www.aishdas.org   but add faith, don't complain about ignorance,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but add wisdom.     - R AY Kook, Arpilei Tohar

In Avodah V14 #45, Micha replied:
> Say a Yekke comes to a minyan in which Berikh Shemei was said. If he
> simply has no minhag to say it, perishah min hatzibur issues might argue 
> that he should say it with this minyan. However, if they bedavqa have a 
> minhag that it ought not be said, ie it was consciously taken out, then 
> it's better he doesn't.

Sounds like you're framing it in Kashrus (e.g. grasshopper or turkey)
terms (i.e. if R'uvain had a mesorah not to eat any grasshoppers, he
would not be allowed to eat grasshoppers even at the table of a Moshe
who had a mesorah that what he was serving to R'uvain was Kosher), but
a mesorah re nusach hat'fila (assuming as a given your latter "have
a minhag" possibility, which you believe would be RRW's position re
"b'rich shmai") only affects one's davening in a minyan which hews to
that nusach; ditto p'rishah from a tzibbur(PmhTz), which is not p'rishah
from Klal Yisroel. Just because Minhag Ashknaz never included Zoharic
passages in nusach hat'fila doesn't mean there's a mesorah to never,
ever utter them aloud as part of a tzibbur (tangentially, al achas
kamah v'kamahin a private venue, e.g. tiqun lail Shvuos/Hoshana Rabba
[or a b'ris Yisschaq :-)]). What's the din if a Yekke (who, as per the SA
[OC 125:1], doesn't say the "n'qadaish" phrase but rather hears it said
by the sha'tz') is saying a "n'qadaish" q'dushah as part of a non-Yekke
minyan (e.g., the regular Shabbos Mincha minyan at the JEC of Elizabeth) --
isn't he a PmhTz if he noticeably doesn't say "n'qadaish"? I believe he
is (IIRC, the MB notes this somewhere, although I couldn't find this
note), and I think one can extrapolate from there to other aspects of
the nusach, such as "brich shmai," especially as many such aspects are
more noticeable than saying ( b'lachash, naturally ;-)) or not saying
one phrase before the main part of the Q'dushah.

All the best from Michael

On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 01:38:17PM -0500, IFriedman@wlrk.com wrote:
: Further corroborating this alternative interpretation of Yisrael is
: the etymological link to Yeshurin (the straight and righteous), which
: is another name for the Jewish people, and Yaakov's grandmother, Sarai
: (or Sarah), meaning princess (e.g., Sar shel Eisav).

And what do we do with the mal'ach's explanation of the name, "ki sarisa"?
For "sarisa" to mean lordship, what would you do with "sarisa im E-lokim" --
Yaaqov rules G-d???

Another post implicitly conveys the meaning I was going for. On Mon,
Dec 20, 2004 at 09:08:05PM +0200, Saul Mashbaum wrote a post titled "Re:
Ono in Hallel":
: A rebbe mentioned to his chassidim at the end of a fahrbrengen that it
: is particularly important to say "Ono Hashem..." ...
: When asked after davening which "Ono" he was referring to, the rebbe said
: "Neither. The main thing is 'Ono Hashem ki ani avdecha...' Once a person
: realizes that he is an eved Hashem, other things fall in place."

: Supplication is important, but even more essential is the sense of
: confrontation with, and subjugation to, the Divine.

Yisrael -- confrontation with the Divine. That doesn't rule out
subjugation.

 -mi

 -- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

From: "David Riceman" <driceman@worldnet.att.net>
> Why is it different from Hagar (who was not a prophet)? It's too close to 
> Shabbos to write it out now, but nudge me next week.

Much to my surprise a couple of people have nudged me. I apologize for
the length of this post, but I haven't been following this thread from the
beginning and I don't know how much background has already been covered.

As far as I know the first mention of the concept of prophetic vision in
rishonim is in Ibn Ezra's peirush at the beginning of Hoshea (1:1-2),
closely paralleled by MN II:46 (Ibn Ezra came first, but I don't know
if the Rambam ever saw his peirushim on Nach). Basically they view
prophet's symbolic actions as happening in visions rather than really
happening, even when they are neither impossible nor assur (loc. cit.),
as long as they would be mocked or misunderstood.

The other opinion, that of Kuzari (e.g. I:99) and Ramban (e.g. Breishis
12:6), that symbolic actions performed by prophets are means of collecting
divine shefa down here on earth, and, in order for them to work, they
must be performed physically.

All of these people were from Spain, and three of them were roughly
contemporary, so I presume both opinions were floating around Spain in
the twelfth century. Perhaps any scholars on the list can confirm or
deny that possibility.

The Rambam (II:6) explains that "malach" can mean many things, including
angel, bat kol, imaginative faculty, and prophet. An angel, for the
Rambam is a disembodied intellect. Unlike Ibn Ezra (who agrees here
with the Ramban, if you'll pardon the anachronism), the Rambam believed
that angels cannot ever use bodies, and hence any attribution of bodies
to angels must happen in a vision. For the Rambam (II:42, where he
says explicitly that Hagar was not a prophet) only prophets can have a
prophetic vision, but even non-prophets can have a veridical dream.

Just to confuse things further in III:45 the Rambam cites Hagar's
"Vayoemer lah malach hashem" as an example of prophetic vision beginning
with an angel (i.e. via the imaginative faculty). I think, however,
that if we combine what the Rambam says in III:45 and II:42 we have a
chance at understanding what he means. In order to be a prophet a person
needs to develop his intellectual faculty (i.e., he needs to understand
the way the world really works, what the Rambam would call philosophy
and we would call science) as well as his imaginative faculty. In
III:45 the Rambam describes (accepting that there he's using malach
to mean imaginative faculty) that idolaters of old developed their
imaginative faculty without developing their intellect, and therefore
[DR's conclusion - not explicitly in the Rambam] they could see visions
but could not distinguish true and false visions. Hagar and the Manoahs,
though they weren't idolaters, had not developed their intellects and
therefore weren't prophets. So the visions they saw were the result of
the imaginative faculty unmediated by the intellect.

Incidentally, were it not for the citation in III:45 I would much prefer
the straightforward pshat that in the Hagar story malach means prophet.
That has it's own problems (it contradicts some midrashim and where
would the prophet come from?) but I think it would solve the Rambam's
major concerns quite nicely.

[Email #2. -mi]

From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
> You have yet to acknowledge (or prove I misunderstood) another part of
> Abarbanel's explanation of the Rambam's position. Even if Avraham saw
> the whole thing, it was not then reennacted -- he saw how events played
> out in heaven while Lot experienced them on earth.

I'm sorry. The Abarbanel's ouevre is so voluminous, and I'm so ignorant
of most of it, that I dons't even know where that idea comes from.
Here's what he says in his commentary on MN II:42 (p. 88a in the middle
of column 1 in the yeshivish edition, s.v. v'hakushia hashvi'is ... va'ani
meishiv..."):

"The entire prophetic vision was Abraham's, not Lot's. Lot saw no
vision, only Abraham did. All of the verses the Ramban cites were part
of the prophetic vision. This does not imply that Lot remained in Sdom,
nor that the activities happened by themselves (me'eileihem - I'm not
sure what that word means here). Instead God showed Abraham a mashal,
but those exact things did not happen. God did, however, destroy Sdom
with fire and brimestone and whirlwinds (ruah zalafoth) which descended
from heaven, and because of Abrahams' merit and Lot's righteousness he
induced him to decide (he'ir ruho) to leave town."

David Riceman 

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


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