[Avodah] Does God Change His Mind?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, March 3, 2008 5:59 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: [RRW:]
:> And what if a person wants to behave in a Divinie of "G-dly" manner.

:> To put it simply, he knows no Halcha but he is  motivated to live up
:> to his innate sprit/soul/highernature etc.

: That's another good objection, but not to Kant per se, but rather, to
: any morality sans revelation. If a person wants to be good, well and
: good, but how will he know how? Ein am haaretz chasid, the Gemara says
: regarding Avimelech....

Doesn't Hillel define morality to the geir quite simply: De'alakh
sani, lechaveirkha lo sa'avod. That's kol haTorah kulah not only in
the short time one can balance on one leg, but also the Torah is
presented as standing on that one leg.

Similarly, concepts as "qedoshim tihyu" or "ve'asisa hatov vehayashar"
presume that there is some validity to how we understand these
concepts beyond how they're spelled out in halakhah.

What you need revelation for is to understand how that one principle
maps to the complexities of real life.

See <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/05/rest-is-commentary.shtml>.

: One may wish to say that Noachides must have some way of determining
: the truth by reason, for the Torah seems to demand this - only Jews
: saw Sinai, after all. To this, I'd say that Jews are to be their
: example...

I would propose the analogy: The Torah is to BY as BY is to the
nations. "Mamlekhes kohanim".

However, the Rambam requires that for someone to really be an
observant Noachide (or perhaps a geir toshav only) is that they
observe the 7 laws because they were relayed to Moshe in Sinai. That
someone who figured them out on their own is at best a chakham, not
from the chassidei umos ha'olam.

On Tue, February 26, 2008 6:49 am, Michael Makovi wrote:
: ...                            does anyone talk about whether it is
: "bad" or patur or what have you, to slaughter the calf in front of the
: mother? ...

I'm not one of Avodah's better-informed contributors, but I never
heard of such a gezeira.

We recently discussed a related topic: The base chiyuv as spelled out
in black and white, and the obligation Rav told Rabba bar bar Chanan
he had to pay the poor workers who broke his barrels.

One has an obligation "qadeish es atzmekha bema shemutar lakh", that
following the base chiyuv without ever going lifnim mishuras hadin is
insufficient. Which also implies people having some knowledge of
morality beyond the letter of spelled out halakhah so as to know what
is beyond the din in constructive ways.

The question we raised is whether there is some criterion for which of
these things motivate a derabbanan, which are just "wrong" in general
but vague ways that suggest personal chumrah.

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

: I didn't say it; Rambam (AFAIK = I haven't seen it inside) said it was
: a minority view that it is not rachamim. AFAIK, Rambam says that
: adarabba, the majority hold mitzvot have humanly-understandable
: ta'amim like rachamim etc.

So check the Rambam inside, or give us a source. As it stands, I have
to assume something was lost in the translation.

: Anyway, despite the Bavli, the Yerushalmi, AFAIK, holds the issue
: isn't rachamim versus not rachamim, but rather shliach tzibur versus
: baal habayit.

Ditto. I can't accept a machloqes without seeing it for myself.

...
: I haven't seen Rambam inside, but the understanding I was given (by
: Rabbi Epstein Faith of Judaism) that Rambam basically says the
: following:
:
: Aristotle says two things: eternity of matter and G-d didn't create
: the world. Rabbi Epstein distinguishes these two, because he says,
: conceivably one could say that matter was eternal but G-d still shaped
: it; I recall Ralbag says something similar to this. So the two issues
: are related, but can be distinguished:
: 1) Is matter eternal or not
: 2) Did G-d involve Himself in creation, whether creating or simply
: shaping that which was eternal. Or was G-d totally uninvolved in any
: way ( = Aristotle).

As far as the Rambam knew, Aristotle did posit that Hashem caused the
universe. That matter is eternal, but only because its Cause is
eternal.  (That's really Plotinus, but the Arabic translation of
Metaphysics included the Enniads as through they were part of the
text.) There is no reason for the universe to exist now that wasn't
true trillions of years ago -- therefore, it must have existed then
too. Aristotle himself noted the law of conservation of matter; we
never find yeish mei'ayin, or ayin miyeish. So, he saw no reason to
question permanence.

Which is how the Rambam could say that if it didn't run counter to our
neviim and chakhamim, Aristotle could be fit in with the pasuq. He
takes creation outside of time rather than eliminating it. The Rambam
then has a discussion (Moreh 1:64) of the identity of the notions of
Cause and Agent in order to explain Asisto.

I therefore do not understand the Rambam in a way that makes your
following discussion meaningful.

...
: Regarding the first, TSBP and the pshat of TSBK says ex-nihilo, and
: since Aristotle hasn't proved eternity of matter, why should we bend
: anything to reconcile with him? BUT, hypothetically speaking, were
: Aristotle to prove beyond a doubt eternity of matter, we'd simply
: allegorize TSBK. I don't know what Rambam would do about TSBP...

Simple! He would say that it can't happen. Two reliable sources can't
contradict. It would be an illusion caused by misunderstanding the
natural philosophy or the Torah. Keep on studying to find out whether
the proof was bad or the mesorah misunderstood.

:                                                             but I'd
: wager a guess that he'd deal with it the same way he dealt with many
: scientific issues in Gemara: Chazal received their science from study
: not Sinai, and so there's no chiyuv to follow them here, whether on
: medicine or on creation ex-nihilo.

"Science" didn't exist yet. Natural philosophy is unfortunately just
that -- philosophy. Which means the line between what Chazal knew
through study of natural philosophy and what they concluded through
talmud Torah is not easily distinguishable. (Unless they told us.) And
perhaps many conclusions were collusions of postulates both that even
they didn't determine which is which.

: In other words, Rambam is content to disagree with Aristotle on things
: that are totally anti-Torah (G-d didn't create world) and things not
: proven (eternity of matter), but on EVERYTHING else, Rambam assumes
: agreement with Torah and Aristotle, and he will interpret one to agree
: with the other in whatever way is most fitting....

But not reinterpret. IOW, the Rambam would say the interpretation was
there all along; we misunderstood. Such as his shitah that mal'akhim
are only seen in nevu'ah. We all attribute it as a chidush of the
Rambam, but the Rambam himself writes that it's inherent in the shitah
of a tanna.

...
:>  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 seem to consider anger almost a tangible substance. I might wonder
: if this is parallel to the idea of form and matter, or the idea that
: knowledge and information have some concrete existence, etc. I don't
: hold like this. So your objection makes no sense to me - anger is not
: something independent from G-d that He and it come together; anger is
: simply something G-d would be at some point.

It needn't be tangible to be created. It's like the Euthyphro
Dilemma... If Hashem didn't invent morality, then we're implying
Hashem is subject to something rather than First Cause. But if He did
invent morality, then did we imply that His choice of "Do not murder"
had no earlier basis, that it's arbitrary that Hashem could have
equally said "Murder!"? Morality (at least as assumed in this dialog
of Plato's) is something that requires

Concepts also require creation. Unless Hashem made up the notion of
anger, there was no way you could have assumed that state. Anger is
what? Frustration plus a need to find something to blame to create a
third emotion?

No surprise... Could you sing a song that wasn't written yet without
having the ability to write it impromptu? Don't we know that any song
you sing was at some time composed -- even if it was at the time of
singing? That too is a non-substance that requires creating.

The Rambam believes the tautologically true is part of Emes, and of
Hashem's essence. The Ramchal believes that logic is a beryah, and
therefore Hashem can create something we would have considered
paradoxical. But anger? Anger would seem to be a beryah according to
both.


...
: Agreed - I know I'm on the edge. But what can I do? I hold according
: to what's apparent to me.

You do more than that... You dismiss the other alternatives from
consideration. To my mind, eilu va'eilu requires having two
definitions of "right" -- what I believe, and what I believe is within
eilu va'eilu for someone else to believe.

And beyond that, even what one considers wrong can't be dismissed
without taking into consideration the likelihood it's more likely I
erred than the rishon in question. I can easily believe that X seems
right, but suspend assiming certainty because I can't believe that I
know all the facts / have the right perspective when it would mean R'
ABC (whomever) missed something compelling.

...
: How about this: if Levi honestly believes that if he speaks lashon
: hara, he will die. Instantly. Don't you agree Levi will be the best
: hilchot lashon hara observer ever? I wager he'll be better than the
: Chofetz Chaim! But the fact remains that his idea that he will die
: instantly, is wrong. 100% wrong. But it still strengthened his
: observance, didn't it?

I fail to see how this has anything to do with our discussion. I'm
talking about a philosophy being a Jewish one if it is consistent with
the Torah and AYH. In the Scholastic era, this means addressing the
questions that were pressing in their time -- discussing things in the
terms raised by the Greeks -- by giving answers drawn from the
mesorah. As I said: Torah's wine poured into Greek bottles.

Whether or not the Rambam is judged to have succeeded at that
challenge or whether he mutilated a square peg by hammering it into a
round hole aside. No one (that I know of) makes similar disclaimers
about the Kuzari, Meqor Chaim (by Ibn Greirol) or Milkhamos Hashem,
which are no less products of the questions of their era.

...
: Kant I am not learned in. But I know that of Rav Hirsch, Rabbi Elias
: in his perush takes great pains to show that of many/all of Rav
: Hirsch's supposed Kantianisms, a Chazalic parallel serves just as
: well...

Exactly! It's not a Chalazic philosophy vs the rishonim's Scholastic
philosophy vs modern Kantian philosophy. It's casting the Jewish world
view in the terms of the age. Emphasis will change as life and culture
bring different issues to the fore.

: From what I've seen, this rishon didn't hold that G-d actually is
: corporeal, but rather that He can at times inhabit a human body....

You're mistaken. Yad Hashem. Charon Apo. Etc...

...
:
: The fact that this rishon, whatever he holds, is so totally minority,
: makes me content to say that 99.9999% would hold that the chumash
: clearly precludes G-d's corporeality....

No, TSBP does. The text explicitly says otherwise. The parallel to
anger is exact. It too is presumed in Tanakh's language, not disputed
by Chazal one way or the other, and left to the rishonim to tell you
it is a turn of phrase not to be taken literally.

But to answer the question in the subject line. Time is a nivra.
Without time, change is meaningless. Change is that the state at t0 is
different than the state at t1. No time, no change.

Emotions make no sense for similar reasons. They are within the one
feeling them. And thus, not a part of His insertion of consequences
into the time stream.

:                              But I know of no one who claims
: the chumash says that G-d has no attributes; this they base on
: philosophy and logic, not explicit textual proofs.

And His purported body as well.



On Tue, February 26, 2008 6:03 pm, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
:      Kant felt that because of man's limitations of reason,
: no one could really know if there is a God and an afterlife, and
: conversely that no one could really know that there was not a God and
: an afterlife.

This snippet was quoted from wikipedia.

However, Kant gives the argument from morality. To wit:

The highest good is where happiness and morality coincide. We are
logically compelled to pursue the highest good, which implies it's
possible to obtain, which in turn implies G-d (Ominiscient, Omnipotent
and Absolute Good) and the afterlife.

: Therefore, he contended for the sake of society and morality,  people
: are reasonably justified in believing in them (God and olam haba),
: even though there was no way to know for sure. In some sense he was
: reflecting free will and suggested hedging one's bets.

It's not really Pascal's wager ("hedging one's bets"). It's more like:
Since he have to be moral beings who pursue happiness, and that's
impossible without positing Hashem and Olam haBa, we must posit them.

One can't prove G-d from first principles, but the Idea of G-d is
pragmatically necessary to make our way.

Kant's world revolved around the notion of duty (as an internal drive,
as opposed to the pre-Enlightment expectation of compulsion), and thus
one could say that to a Kantian, mitzvah implies Mitzaveh. Rather than
the Rambam's more euclidean approach from postulates of matter, form,
motion, division, etc..

More like we are wired to believe in the possibility of morality,
which means we're implicitly wired to believe in G-d. More reflecting
the concept of yeitzer hatov than free will. Yeitzer implies Yotzeir.

A new era in philosophy opened up (although Rihal touches on it when
he writes on "Anokhi H' E-lokekha asher hotzeisikha" as opposed to
"asher bara shamayim va'aretz"). And the questions the acharonim were
called upon to address and the terminology they borrow to address it
shifted as well.

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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