[Avodah] shape of the menorah

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 08:57:16AM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: was the menorah arms straight or rounded?
: see
: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1047597.html

We discussed this here before (Chanukah 2003). RSM pushed for "rounded"
in <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol12/v12n065.shtml#12>. "A L in
London" replied in <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol14/v14n077.shtml#17>.

IMHO, I think reading both (thery basically agree, the L posted
anonymously because his opinion is not popular in L circles) is far more
informative than Haaretz's summary of R' Ariel's argument.

>From a pragmatic perspective, 24kt gold can't be made into a straight-line
menorah or even if the arms were semi-circular, they would bend. That's
not to say this is a drop-down proof; the menorah was made miraculously
(the first one, at least), perhaps they stayed made miraculously
as well. But without miracles, the arms would have had to have been
parabolic or something similar. LiL described the diagrams in early
editions of Rashi as having elliptical arms.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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