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

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 02:03:25PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: >>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...
...
: >>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.

: In that case, we should refer to a delayed bris as "shelo be'itah"
: rather than "shelo bizmanah".  But leshon Chazal is "shelo bizmanah",
: e.g. Shabbat 132b.  Perhaps this is a chiluk in leshon mikra which
: was lost in leshon Chazal, and was recovered in the modern era?

More significant is the notion that there are at least two definitions
of at the right time", thereby allowing someone to die at the right time
by one definition but being deprived of the opportunity to fill out his
time by the other.

I suggested that a qeitz can only be when the endpoint of the process
and the timeline coincide.

That's enough to answer the original question.



Zeman vs eis, do they reflect this distinction between time as a dimension
vs processes, and if so how, is arguably seperable into a second issue. I
would agree that the connotation of the words could have changed over
time.

In tefillah we speak of "zeman cheiruseinu", "zeman matan Toraseinu",
"zeman simchaseinu" as points on the calendar. Pesach is time for
cheirus, and the processes of history are pulled into that pre-arranged
appointment.

What does it mean when it speak of zivah "belo eis nidasa"? That it's
definitely zivah because it's not the right time of the cycle, or that
it may be zivah because it's not the right date?

"Eis la'asos Lashem", both peshat and derashah, appear to be about a
point in the process, not on the timeline.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
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