[Avodah] Is the term ?He died before his time? correct?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 02:30:05PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: R' Avroham Yakov wrote:
: >>But is such a term hashkofically correct?  If Ha-Shem decides to take 
: >>someone, can that be ?before their time??

: Chagiga(4b): R. Joseph, when he came to the [following] verse, wept: But 
: there is that is swept away without judgment.27 [He said]:28 Is there 
: anyone who passes away before one's [allotted] time?29 ? Yes, as in the 
: story [heard] by R. Bibi b. Abaye,30 who was frequently visited by the 
: Angel of death. [Once] the latter said to his messenger: Go, bring me 
: Miriam, the women's hairdresser!31 He went and brought him Miriam, the 
: children's nurse. Said he to him:32 I told thee Miriam, the women's 
: hairdresser. He answered: If so, I will take her back....

BTW, I thought this story was a veiled reference to Christianity.
As in Mary Madgaddlela (Mary the hairdresser).

I don't have an answer to RAY's question, but I would suggest two
directions I would explore:

1- There are two kinds of appointed time -- zeman va'eis. As I wrote in
MmD (but the Aspaqlaria version at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/mikeitz64.shtml> is in HTML and therefore
easier to cut-n-paste):
> R' Aharon Kotler zt"l commented to a student on the occasion of the
> birth of the student's son about the phrase "The beris should be
> be'ito ubizmano", using both "eis" and "zeman" to denote its proper
> time. Similarly the famous words of Koheles, "Lakol zeman va'eis...
> everything has its zeman and its eis..." Rav Aharon explained the
> difference. If the baby is healthy, then the beris is at the
> pre-decided time, on the eight day. If not, then it will be at the
> right time for that individual baby. Ideally the beris would be at
> both.

> An eis is a time that comes according to a prescheduled appointment,
> ready or not. It is a point in a shanah, in cyclic time that runs its
> celestial heartbeat regardless of human action. A zeman is a landmark in
> the course of progression. And so, one is "kovei'ah itim baTorah", one
> sets aside times for Torah. In Ma'ariv, we describe Hashem as "Meshaneh
> itim uMachalif es hazemanim -- the One Who changes the itim and switches
> the zemanim." Note that for "itim", the change is described as a shinui,
> reflecting the word shanah.

> But neither an eis nor a zeman can represent the goal of the trip.
> Repetition without progress and progress without reflection as to its
> purpose do not get one to a meaningful goal. A qeitz, an endpoint, can
> only come from both.

Assuming you read the vertl and buy into my thesis, "lo veqitzo" would
be that the eis (allotted time) arrived but the person failed to reach
the proper zeman, time in the process of his life.

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha at aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
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