[Avodah] [Areivim] Seeing the Swiss Alps

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 07:33:16PM -0500, Joshua Meisner wrote:
: I do not understand the mishnah to mean that a person should ignore the
: beauty of nature around him, but merely that to cease the learning that one
: is currently actively engaged in in order to take note of such nature is a
: misplacement of priorities...

Lakol zeman va'eis...

Another possibility: The issur is in interrupting one's learning.
Admiring Niagra Falls as Hashem's beauty, to be inspired by "mah rabu
ma'asekha Hashem", isn't interrupting learning. (I know, it's derush-y.
But my father likes it.)

But then, someone who gets a "mah rabu ma'asekha Hashem" feeling from
the beauty of a sugya really has no motivation.

Third: R' Ya'aqov's word for learning is "mishnaso". How are you going
to memorize something if you stop in the middle of the repetitions? Such
a person is going to mangle the mishnayos he's trying to preserve!

Fourth: R' Ya'aqov is Acheir's grandson, the one who ends up answering
Elisha ben Avuyah's original question by stating that "lema'an ya'arikhun
yamekha" referred to olam haba, not olam hazeh. Among the things blamed
for Acheir's going off the path is his pursuit of Hellenic works. As in
the aesthetics of nature.


The other question is whether R' Steinman really meant that he would
only interrupt his gemara learning for beauty that motivates a berakhah,
for the berakhah itself, or the story altogether shifted and he simply
wanted to avoid being bemaqom safeiq about whether to make one.

Tir'u baTov!
-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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