[Avodah] Sefer HaChinuch on why 2 weeks Nidah for a girl and only 1 for a boy

[Zev Sero]

Gershon Seif wrote:

> The problem is that he then quotes a Ramban and says that this is 
> exactly what the Ramban is saying too. - Now, the Ramban never said in 
> his hakdama he's approximating or guessing. He writes that there that he 
> will often be misunderstood because he alludes to kabbaIistic ideas. So 
> I always thought those hard to understand Rambans were really allusions 
> to kabbalistic ideas and I moved on. But it seems that the Chinuch 
> learned that this particular Ramban is just basic "common sense".
> 
> So what happens if we find that modern science rejects the Chinuch's 
> pshat? Are we left saying the Ramban got it wrong? Or he meant something 
> else and we don't understand? Or the chinuch had a different approach to 
> learning Ramban?

Perhaps the Chinuch misunderstood the Ramban.  I haven't got either one
in front of me, so I wonder how muchrach his pshat is in the Ramban;
maybe he was just reading the Ramban in light of his scientific knowledge,
and we can read it differently.

But the truth is that it doesn't bother me if the Ramban was also
based on the science of his times.  Because the preface you cite seems
to provide for exactly that.  The Ramban says he's hiding allusions
to high concepts; but in what is he hiding them?  The most obvious
way to hide such illusions is precisely in the terms that his readers
will most readily understand, i.e. the science that they know.  If that
science proves to be mistaken, then the mashal is no longer appropriate
for modern ears; but the nimshal remains the same, and just as valid.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas