[Avodah] Diberah Torah

[hlampel at koshernet.com]

 Re: Diberah Torah (Zvi Lampel)

R' Micha Berger wrote:

"Rabbi Aqiva darshened lexically, looking for
keywords, pulling mounds
of halakhos out of the tagin on the letters. R'
Yishmael objected,
saying the Torah uses natural language, and therefore
words like "es"
need not signify any ribui.

"The rishonim take his words and turn it into a
shorthand to mean
entirely different things. That's beyond just new
connotation, it's a
new topic. ... But don't confuse two uses
of the same phrase to give earlier authority to the
later idea, or to
misunderstand either.

"When the notion of non-literalism was attributed to
Chazal's use of
the phrase and R' Yishma'els side of the machloqes, I
spoke up. That's
anachronistic conflation of two uses of an idiom."

(End of excerpt of MIcha Berger)

But the Rambam, for instance, said that this is the
meaning of what Chazal said. For example, Moreh
Nevuchim (1:26):

CHAPTER XXVI 
You, no doubt, know their saying, which encompasses
all the various kinds of interpretation connected to
this area. namely what they said:"The Torah speaks
according to the language of man.” This implies that
expressions that can easily be comprehended and
understood by all at first thought, are necessarily
associated to the Alm-ghty, yis-aleh. Hence the
description of G-d by attributes implying
corporeality, in order to express His existence:
because the multitude of people do not easily
conceive existence unless in connection with a body,
and that which is not a body nor connected with a
body has for them no existence.

I therefore conclude that [the rishonim understood
that] the essential meaning of the Chazal is a broad
one that includes the one used by the rishonim. Rabbi
Yishmael was just applying one of its implications.

Zvi Lampel