[Avodah] [Areivim] tzioni dayenu

[Zev Sero]

On Areivim, Ben Waxman wrote:

>> We see from here, that a man who eats neveilos and treifos, who
>> publicly desecrates the Shabbas, "der mentsch ken nisht zayn moshian
>> shel Yisrael [that man cannot be the savior of Israel]"!

> I would answer the Brisker by stating that he made a straw man 
> arguement. No one claimed that Herzl or BG or anyone as of today was the 
> savior of Israel. A messenger yes, saviour no.

As a factual question, did DBG in fact do less saving of Israel than
did Shimshon?  The original language about Shimshon is not "moshi`an
shel Yisrael", but "shehoshia` et Yisrael".  It's not a title but a
description of what he did.  In what way can we distinguish between
what Shimshon and DBG actually did, in the field of "saving Israel"?
And since it is an incontrovertible fact that DBG was a sinner, what
becomes of the Rambam's proof that Shimshon was not?


Here's my suggestion: the Rambam is not *proving* that Shimshon
*couldn't* have been a sinner.  He is saying that Shimshon saved Israel,
and therefore we owe him the courtesy of assuming him to have been a
tzadik unless we have incontrovertible proof otherwise.  Since it is
possible to read the story in Tanach in a way that absolves him of sin,
we must read it that way.  Were that impossible, we would have no choice
but to acknowledge what the evidence told us.  Similiarly, were we to
have no more information about DBG than we do about Shimshon, we would
be obligated to assume that he too was a tzadik, and to dismiss any
vague indications we might have that it was not so.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                    - Margaret Thatcher