[Avodah] the physics of giants

[Zev Sero]

On 8/11/2011 11:53 AM, Lisa Liel wrote:

> Are you telling me you honestly can't think of another way to read
> the midrash in that context?

Are you telling me you can?  Why don't you suggest another way of reading
that maamar chazal?  (Why do you call it a midrash?)


> In the first place, his erecting the mishkan on his own is midrash itself.

What are you talking about?  It's an explicit pasuk.


> But even if you take it literally, you aren't forced to imagine Moshe
> Rabbenu being some 18 feet tall.

No, one could imagine him using a ladder instead, but if we're smart
enough to think of that don't you think Chazal were too?  And yet they
didn't even consider this possibility.  When it comes to the weight of
the boards, Rashi says he needed Divine help, because they were too
heavy for any one person to lift.  But when it comes to the height of
the roof, the Torah says he spread the roof, and the gemara derives
from this that he must therefore have been at least as tall as that
roof.  No ladders.

And what will you do with the hava amina that the gemara seriously
entertains that all the leviyim were that tall?  Indeed RMF takes
seriously and literally the gemara that the entire generation of
Bnei Yisrael who were present at Matan Torah were ten amot tall.
(IM YD 3:66)


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin