[Avodah] The daf yomi in Chulin 128a Tanaim hold the kishus planted in an otsits sh'aino nakuf is yonaik min ha'aretz-

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 09, 2011 at 01:03:31AM -0500, hankman wrote:
: If you want to place emphasis on firsthand experience and by what
: they experience, you are welcome to try that approach ??? but not to
: the point of using facts that are demonstrably false to the best of
: current knowledge. Torah is not meshaker! (not in whole and even not in
: part ??? ie it is not OK for the psychology to be correct but not the
: underlying facts).

I still wasn't clear. Yes, the Torah isn't meshaqer. But halakhah
simply isn't based on the hard sciences, and therefore no halakhah
implies anything one way or the other about them. IOW, halakhah is about
psychology, not "underlying facts". Thus, it can't lie or even imply a
truth about the physics/chemistry/biology of the situation. The whole
thing is off topic.

This assumption that when the gemara bases a law on the idea that "maggots
are born without piryah verivyah" it is making a claim about biology is
the over-scientism caused by a couple of centuries of success at matering
the world ("veqivshuha") by Coginitive Man. The sentence is totally
unrelated to biology; it can't be incorrect in the realm of biology since
it says nothing about biology. The gemara is saying that maggots don't
reproduce in a way that people can associate with piryah verivyah. The
microscopic eggs that we since discovered they emerge from is totally
outside the domain of the statement, and has nothing to do with its truth.

: RMB wrote:

: To tell the truth, I do not have a single mystical bone in my body ??? except perhaps for the Luz bone for techias hamesim.

You wrote your little header, but didn't quote me saying anything.

But you apparently meant to reply to my claim that requiring halakhah
to relate to the physics, chemistry and biology requires a mystical
approach to halakhah. One in which the purpose of the law is to move
the universe directly, rather than to move the people in it.

So, it is inconsistent for someone with not a single mystical bone
in their body to make this assumption.

(BTW, "Luz" is the original name of Bet-El, where Yaaqov saw that heaven
and earth meet, it's the city where no one lies, and no one dies, and it's
the bone where head and body meet. Speaking, as Lisa is on another thread,
about blatant metaphors...)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
micha at aishdas.org        others come to love him very naturally, and
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook