[Avodah] Sodom bed [was Torah Homeschooling|

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 02:41:11AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: A. Romulus and Remus, twins suckled by she-wolf -- founders of  Rome
: B. Phoenix -- bird that dies in fire and is reborn from the  ashes
: C. Salamander that is immune to fire
: D. Adonis or Narcissus -- handsome man who sees his reflection in  water 
: and falls in love with his own image
: E. All twelve signs of the Zodiac

One needs to distinguish between these cases. All of the following
are possible:

1- Ideas we got from them but thought that they were accurate secular
knowledge.
2- Meshalim they used that we liked
3- Ideas of ours that they liked
4- Meshalim of ours that they liked
5- Ideas that predate both us and them
6- Truths both of us reached independently
Etc...

Your list therefore runs the risk of misleading, because putting them
all together suggests to the casual reader to expect a single unifying
answer and I doubt that's true.

A-B are ideas that the locals considered history and science. It
makes sense for Chazal to accept them as fact, not only metaphor.
Whereas the only way Chazal could borrow D is because they liked the
myth's mashal. Alternatively, D could be them evolving myth around the
retelling of our story. And because it's mythical, there is no way we
can use the same answer I would suggest for E.

E is more complicated. The Zodiac predates matan Torah. We were all taught
about how tying up a sheep and offering it as the first Pesach was a
blow to the Egyptians, and your grade-school rebbe or Morah explained
it's because they worshipped sheep. Similarly, the problem at the end
of Bereishis when the brothers moved down to Mitzrayim and their being
shepherds.

The Avudraham argued that they didn't so much worship sheep as worship
the Zodiac. Thus, killing a sheep DURING Nissan was what was particularly
in defiance of Egyptian religion. And if you could be a shepherd without
tending your flock in Nissan, I don't think they would have minded.

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: --Toby  Katz
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Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
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