[Avodah] Does God Change His Mind?

[Micha Berger]

RYGB wrote:
: I don't know why no one else responded to you, but I
: would find it difficult to reply to someone who states "*I*
: disagree" with the Rambam, RSRH et al.

RMS shared what I believe is roughly the same sentiment when he wrote:
: While I find it difficult to reply to one who 'disagrees' with the Ari
: ZT'L.

It's not a matter of which side is right, but of assuming that any of
us have the ability to assess a question that they found disputable.

Detour into the matter of emunas chakhamim.... Ignoring declarations
made in bans that I do not follow the reasoning of...

There is something I'll call the Sinai Culture. Because nisqatnu
hadoros, in general members of later eras, products of more
dislocations since Moshe Rabbeinu a"h, have less of it. It's not a
matter of book knowledge as much as having the perspective, priorities
and etire gestalt. It's very much a culture, not a library.

The nearest any of us get to recreating that culture is the talmud
chakham. This is the concept chareidim call "da'as Torah", but the
basic idea is that Torah study changes how one perceives the world.
And the notion stands whether or not one buys into the consequences
chareidim feel da'as Torah implies.

It is from Torah gefeel, not Torah knowledge, that a poseiq draws his
authority. A guy with an IQ of 180 and a Bar Ilan CD is still not
qualified to be the poseiq acharon.

This notion is befeirush in the gemara (20a), nisqatnu hadoros is a
statement about declining willingness for mesiras nefesh, not
knowledge. (And in fact, knowledge increased in the span from Rebbe
until the protagnonists in the gemara -- Rav Papa and his rebbe,
Abayei.)

See also
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/02/midgets-on-the-shoulders-of-giants.shtml>

Thus, it takes a certain amount of caution when inserting oneself into
the question of the authenticity of Zoharic Qabbalah. Knowing data is
insufficient if one really doesn't have the same instinctive sense of
what Torah "feels like".


On Fri, February 15, 2008 4:01 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: You'll also be hard-pressed to find a scholar who accepts that Daniel
: was not written in the Hashmonean era. I mean only that this defense
: cuts both ways. If you try to appeal to disputed authorship of an
: apocryphal(-like) mystical work, you've exposed yourself.

: In any case, I haven't yet found a scholar who can seriously
: distinguish between Daniel on the other hand, and the other
: apocryphal/apocalyptic works on the other, without simply resorting to
: mesorah....

Who cares what scholars think? It's like taking proof from Apocrypha.
In both cases one may have access to information, but people who know
the Sinai weltenschaung deemed it irrelevent.

This is a major blunder C inherited/adopted from the Historical
School. This confusion of academia, where the goal is to know
something well through staying apart from it, objective, as opposed to
talmud Torah where the goal is to internalize the study and bedavka
learn how to understand it from within.

:     We've got mesorah that Daniel is kosher and the other works
: are not, and otherwise, the two are difficult to distinguish...

Which simply /proves/ that we lack the basic feel to make a
determination Chazal did make. Rather than play down the distinction,
instead one must take caution at this proof of my lack of proper
perspective.

(WADR to people you tend to cite, R' Hertz, REB, and now Prof Urbach
do not engender that kind of emunas chakhamim in me. I am not playing
down their knowledge. I am speaking only of my ability to perceive the
kind of internalization that Abayei and R' Papa discuss that one can
perceive in RYBS, RMF, the SR, the LR, my rebbe... People who made
their life's mission not academic study of the Torah but its
internalization. R' Hertz did both, but his stature is in the academic
sphere. But besach hakol, your choice of sources often makes me feel
like you're talking cross-purposes with the rest of the chevrah.)

On Sun, February 17, 2008 5:36am, R Michael Makovi wrote:
: I recall an earlier thread on this topic, I forget where, about
: whether a person should choose a shita or just know what's out there.

I am not sure what the question is. I can't control my opinion that
well. If I hear two shitos, usually one appears to me to make more
sense, or to better fit other ideas that I already accepted, than the
other. I can't really help choosing a shitah; I do it before my
consciousness steps in to stop me.

: A rabbi of mine gave a mini-shiur on this, in which he said that on
: the one hand, Torah is something to be lived, not merely theoretically
: known. So it isn't enough to simply know the shitot out there; in the
: end of the day, you have to hold by *something*.

I would agree. Note also how your rebbe implicitly tied this into the
difference between academic study and talmud Torah.

But holding by something doesn't require saying one is right and one
is wrong. "Eilu va'eilu", after all. Rather, one better fits my
kishronos, neti'os and background than the other, so it's the path to
HQBH I am best off pursuing. I know, intellectually, that the other is
no less wrong. But as it's on another path, I only know that at a more
cerebral level.

This opens the door to a general discussion of eilu va'eilu, but this
post is going to be long enough without it.



Now, getting back to the original topic...

On Thu, February 14, 2008 5:38 pm, Michael Makovi wrote:
:>  However, one could ask in the reverse: if it were about
:>  actual mercy, why is it limited to birds and *not* include higher
:>  mammals?

: Shecht rather than axepole, don't kill the calf and mother on the same
: day, feed your animals before you feed yourself...I believe Rambam
: discusses this.

But you can slaughter a calf right in front of the mother. There is no
parallel to shiluach haqen. Thus, it would be hard to say that ShQ is
driven by rachamim rather than out to teach rachamim, as you would
have to explain why we could be cruel to the cow. OTOH, if it is a
lesson in rachamim, we have to explain why birds are used for the
lesson, not cows. That's a much easier answer, as we can use RSRH-like
symbology.

But more to the point, the notion that shiluach haqen isn't expressing
rachamim is R' Yosi bar Avin's and R' Yosi bar Zevida's (Berakhos
33b). One raises the issue of my poor cow, the other that the point is
avodas Hashem. (Quite probably not a machloqes.) Rava and Abayei were
so sure of the point, Rava joked about it.

...
: And Rambam rejects that this is the majority view. Or we can go with
: the Yerushalmi that it is davka a shaliach tzibur who cannot do this,
: because he'll mislead the tzibur, because he cannot explain to them
: (during tefillah) what he's doing. But during a shiur? B'vadai one can
: express the fact that He has mercy on the birds.

Majority view? There are only three people cited in the gemara, and
they all agree on this aspect of things.

...
: Rambam as is well known, was essentially reconciling the science of
: his day with Torah, much as many do today. So if Aristotle (who could
: not be wrong) had proved such-and-such about Hashem or the world, then
: surely the Torah concurs (for how could the Torah contradict that
: which has been proven?), and so the only thing left to do is show how
: everything in the Torah agrees with everything proven by Aristotle.

The Rambam did believe that Aristotle could be wrong, and in fact
rejected his theory on the eternity of matter (as you yourself write
in the next sentence).

Thus if the Rambam believed the Torah had a position that contradicted
Aristotle's conclusions, he would assume Aristotle was wrong. That's
not being questionable because of Greek Philosophy. It's using
Philosophy to fill in gaps the Torah doesn't spell out.

: Those things not proven by Aristotle (such as eternity of matter,
: according to Rambam) we need not be concerned with. But even there,
: Rambam offered a way to reconcile Torah with eternity of matter...

Not at all. The Rambam says that TSBK could be reconciled, if TSBP --
"the conclusions of our nevi'im and chakhamim" weren't otherwise. And
that the two can't really contradict. So if we have a reliable
mesorah, he would have to dig through Aristo to find the flaw.

It's pouring wine into a bottle, not rounding the corners of a square
peg.

:> But because the conclusions seem
:>  inescapable simply within looking at the Torah and using reason. A
:> G-d  who is at times angry is experiencing time.

: And again, I don't see the problem with this. He is experiencing time
: viz. a viz. His interaction with the world, not in Himself per se.

Hashem "only" acts in a manner that looks like anger. Thus it's the
consequence of the action which we're describing, and the consequence
is also within time. So, there are other times in which things other
than anger can be displayed. There is contrast.

However, if you place the anger within Hashem, then you placed the
problem of emotions and time there as well.

:>  AND, a G-d who is at times angry is two things when He is angry - a
:>  G-d, and His Anger. Divisibility.

: Why is His anger a separate thing? Is my happiness or my anger
: separate from me? No. I am me, and sometimes I have a state of anger
: or happiness. So where's the divisibility? He's one God, and He has
: attributes that are a part of Him.

A PART OF HIM. Exactly. Something that can disappear without the other
PARTS changing. Plurality. A nonessential attribute is a different
piece than the essence. If Hashem can exist with or without Divine
Wrath then you have to ask how the two came together to begin with,
and who created the Creator.

:>  You are subject to the concept of anger (to return to the same
:>  middah). How and when you express that anger is you, but the very
:>  concept of anger precedes you. The concept of anger cannot precede
:> the Creator of anger.

: Anger precedes me? The anger is an attribute of me; I am not an
: attribute of the anger.

Anger existed before you were born. The concept doesn't depend on you
to exist; you depend on the concept existing in order to be who you
are. It precedes you both logically and in time.

For God to get angry, someone had to invent the concept of anger, and
then add it to God, or invent God and add to Him the concept of anger.
God can no longer be the end of the chain of "Why?" unless He is so
Simple as to have no divisibility even to separate ideas.

To better address RMM's next point in light of my comments above:
:>  REB, was far less immersed in the Torah weltenschaung than the
:> people he was disputing. This is the whole nisqatnu hadoros. REB
:> might have  nice theories, but his threshold of proof is quite high.
:> And his invocation of a Torah theology over that of Chazal or the
:> rishonim smacks of R's call of a return to prophetic Judaism -- with
:> the huge distinction of the claim being mutar WRT aggadita.

: Again, I would simply say that he was operating on the same sources
: but had a different philosophical starting point. Medieval Jewish
: philosophy had a lot of questions never asked by Chazal and a lot of
: philosophical baggage never regarded by Chazal.

Yes, philosophy created new questions to answer, in addition to giving
new words with which to answer them. But rishonim knew better than we
can judge which seams between philosophy and Torah are smooth, and
which are more forced and artificial.

: Heck, the rishonim say that one can disagree with a Chazalic aggadata!

And thus the issue isn't "can", but "likelihood of being right". It
may be allowed, but you're very unlikely to hit the nail on the head.

...
:>  We must start with the assumption otherwise, or the entire process
:> -- including the development of halakhah -- is suspect. It's a
:> reducio ad absurdum: if you can believe that baalei mesorah regularly
:> erred in aggadic matters, wouldn't the same argument apply to the
:> transmission of halakhah?

: Absolutely yes. Bingo. Chazal are human. Whatever was not received
: from Sinai (but instead was extrapolated from Sinaitic data, or
: recovered/recalled/rederived from Sinatic data that was forgotten, can
: certainly be wrong. Chinuch and Ran both say that we are to follow
: Chazal even when they are wrong. The entire nature of machloket means
: that Chazal can be wrong...

Not according to most understandings of eilu va'eilu -- that topic I'm
trying to skirt again.

: Rambam says that the Torah promises material benefits as a reward, in
: the same way that one gives candy to a child. So in this way, this
: idea of material benefit strengthens observance. But is this the
: proper, "true", way? No. (Now, my analogy is not perfect. According to
: Rambam, material reward is 100% true, and simply a lower, non-lishma
: understanding. For a proper analogy, I need a *false* idea that will
: strengthen observance. But  I think my point is clear.)

Your parenthetic is wrong. The analogy is perfect -- they are multiple
models to fit the same truth to a human life. One might be a better
model, aimed at people capable of aiming higher. Or, they might be
equal and different models for people who simply have different
perspectives.

: Rabbi Slifkin says that many limit the kinds of hashkafic ideas they
: show their students, because they only want to express ideas that will
: directly strengthen mitzvot performance. Rabbi Slifkin says this
: approach is certainly valid, but it's not the only approach.

One side effect of RNS's time here is that citing him doesn't end up
carrying more weight than a post. You want to convince me, you would
need to discuss his sources. But since RNS was scared off Avodah-style
public fora by people who combed them for things to incriminate him
for, I think it's unfair to discuss his position here, anyway.

But I'm not saying that one makes things up or edits thoughts so as to
maximize avodas Hashem. Rather, the difference between a philosophy
and a Torah philosophy is that the latter advances AYH and (implicitly
redundantly I must add) is consistent with the Torah.

Beis Shammai aren't wrong. And if they were, their successors wouldn't
be very likely to assess a mistake made by people who hadn't lost all
the Torah lost during churban bayis. We would have less confidence in
the accuracy of the determination than in the original statement!


: Obviously he had certain philosophical bases and axioms and whatnot.
: But I mean, no foreign philosophy (AFAIK) was explicitly relied on by
: him. He said his purpose was to learn Judaism from itself (cf. Rav
: Hirsch) without any reliance on anything foreign....

And yet RSRH was Kantian, and REB a neo-Kantian Existentialist. You
can even read deconstruction in REB's hyperlegalistic "terms of the
beris" perspective on avodas Hashem. Their philosophies are very
easily perceivable as products of their respective zeitgeists.

:>  To ask a final question: If REB's argument is valid WRT Hashem's
:>  emotions, why isn't it valid WRT His features? How can one say
:> "charon  apo" is an idiom for anger, not a reference to the flairing
:> of the Divine Nostril, and yet insist one must stop there because the
:> anger couldn't possibly be anthropomorphic idiom?
:
: By features, you mean physical, bodily features, and by nostril, a
: physical nostril? The Torah itself says He doesn't have a body....

It does not. The corporeality of G-d is actually championed by an
(admittedly obscure) rishon. The Raavad is forced to not consider it
an ikkar since people he considered great espoused it.

: Obviously, it could very well be that His emotions are "as-if", and
: anger is an anthropomorphic idiom. The Torah doesn't say, so there's
: no opportunity for correct or incorrect exegesis at all, let alone one
: side making a gross clumsy inept error (like missing the glaring fact
: that the Torah says He has no body). Therefore, this is up for debate,
: REB versus everyone else.

But how can you bet on REB with odds like that?

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Man wants to achieve greatness overnight,
micha at aishdas.org        and he wants to sleep well that night too."
http://www.aishdas.org     - Rav Yosef Yozel Horwitz, Alter of Novarodok
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