[Avodah] Predictions of Oneshim

[Micha Berger]

I commented on Areivim in a discussion about RALSteinman's warning that
if the gov't were to cut stipends to full-time learners, Israel's economy
would collapse. My problem is that this kind of cause-and-effect isn't
what we encounter in life.

Which is why I'm expecting to learn it stated as a warning -- "could",
not prediction -- "will".

I wrote:
>> But even without hesteir panim, there is still the problem of "tzadiq
>> vera lo". Even if RALS holds that cutting the stipends was necessarily
>> an act of rish'us, they could still be the rasha vetov lo.

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 05:13:33PM -0400, Zev Sero replied on Areivim:
> It could be, but since when do we *count* on it?  Isn't the 11th ikkar
> still operative?  Don't we still say it and aren't we required to still
> believe it, no matter how many times it appears to us to fail, at least
> temporarily?

You shifted argument. My point is just that midah keneged midah and
belief in sechar va'onesh don't get translated to being able to predict
the given onesh if someone were to make a decision. I'm saying we can't
count on the fulfilment of these rules, not that we can count on them
not being fulfilled.

The simple understanding of these things leads to a terrible disjoin
with life experience. I couldn't pen the words David haMelekh did,
"Naar hayisi", yes, but I have seen a tzadiq where "zar'o mevaqeish
lakhem." Perhaps the answer is in the word "ne'ezav", the tzadiq who
can't feed his family has no sense of abandonment -- he is living
within "gam zu letovah". But now we're leaving simple understandings
and entering murkiness.

It also invites a "No True Scottsman" fallacy. Andy Flew invented the
term. Here's a simple rendition of the fallacy. Hamish McDonald reads
an article about the Brighton Sex Maniac. He declares that "No Scotsman
would do such a thing." The next day he reads his newspaper and learns
of a man from Aberdeen who was even worse. Rather than admitting he was
wrong yesterday, Mr McDonald says to himself "No true Scotsman would do
such a thing."

In our case, if you did find a tzadiq who was neezav in the sense of
feeling abandoned, wouldn't the natural resolution be, "Well then,
he couldn't have been a true tzadiq"? IOW, that interpretation is
meaningless, as it presumes its conclusion in the word "tzadiq".

A mashal for my original statement:

Ani maamin beemunah sheleimah in Newton's First Law of Motion:
     Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that
     state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
(As modified by General Relativity's definition of "uniform motion",
requiring me to say "uniform motion relative to a given inertial frame
of reference.")

And yet, we live on a planet where friction is nearly inescapable and
lemaaseh any object I've seen move will eventually come to rest due to
energy lost to that friction, if it hasn't already. (Even the moon is
slowing down.)

Similarly, there is a concept of onesh, but I have no idea how it will
actually play out. Midah keneged midah can happen in so many ways,
short of HQBH spelling it out in nevu'ah, how can anyone predict how it
will happen?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
micha at aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter