[Avodah] Ramp On!

[Micha Berger]

I called the problem of why kohanim can't serve non-obvious. That
wasn't intended to mean that I didn't know and was fishing for
answers, but it generated conversation...

On Wed, February 6, 2008 5:28 pm, Richard Wolberg wrote:
: With all the different responses regarding a Mum, did the following
: occur to anyone? ... Just as it is incomprehensible why God created the
: mum to begin with, it is also incomprehensible (although in a lesser
: degree) why God prohibited the mum (Kohen) to serve.

Which fits the general issue, as in why the caste system altogether,
and why different roles for genders.

As I recently posted on my blog: It's not that I have more chiyuvim
than my wife because I'm a man. Rather, it's because my soul needed
those chiyuvim that Hashem made me a man.

Similarly, someone with a handicap has a different life story than I
do. Even the "blotch on the face" means they had to deal with issues
of people staring and subsequent impact on self-image. That soul, it
seems, needed that experience more than mine.

And somehow Hashem insures that kohanim who are baalei mum are
perfectly suited to also have to deal with not having the obligations
their fathers and brothers do. In addition to the more fundamental
challenges faced.

On Wed, February 6, 2008 5:42 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Perhaps Hashem wants to be sure that at least a few mitzvot train us
: to follow "naaseh v'nishmah", do the mitzvah just because it's
: commanded, to train us in obedience pure and simple.

: But even with the chukim, people try to find rationales....

And as RYBS notes, even within mishpatim, no rationale is fully
sufficient. Even lo sirtzach... Reason alone can not tell you whether
retzichah includes euthanasia, abortion, people with no brain
activity, milchemes reshus, etc...

Which is why I am dissatisfied with Cantor Wolberg's approach, even as
I acknowledge its truth. We're supposed to try to understand things,
and only assume divine mystery when that fails.

(One of the many recurring topics on Avodah is defining "failure", the
flipside of asking about the malleability of aggadita. If it is okay
to find a new peshat in parashas Noach, then this drive would have us
minimize the number of nissim presumes. How much are we to make
comprehensible?)

Choq vs mishpat are extremes on a scale. No mitzvah is purely one or
the other.

: Now, one may interpret "chok" here to mean the mitzvah has no
: rationale. But to do so, one must ignore the next clause of the
: midrash: Rabbi Abuia (or something like that) says that the parah
: adumah symbolizes the golden calf.

: So we see, a "chok" here does NOT mean it has no rationale. Rather, it
: means that the mitzvah is ein elah NOTHING BUT a symbolic rationale!

Azoi zogt RSRH, but his is a daas yachid. Look at the Rambam's similar
but non-identical distinction of mitzvos sichlios vs shim'ios.

The association between parah adumah and the eigel (quoted by Rashi on
the chumash) simply justifies too little to make the mitzvah a
mishpat. Again, using the idea that they are extremes of a scale, and
no mitzvah is exclusively one or the other.

For that matter, while parah adumah is called a choq, within parah
adumah, the fact that it is metaheir es hatemei'im while also metamei
es hatehorim is pointed to as a choq within that choq. There are
grades of incomprehensibility.


My own take on the question is similar to one suggested by RMM:
Every mitzvah is an educational experience, but if you try to teach
too many different topics at once, things get lost. The avodah is too
central to BALM to be leveraged for BALC too. It is not an appropriate
time for stretching limits in that direction, and so existing
limitations in the observer are accomodated.

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
Fax: (270) 514-1507