[Avodah] the physics of giants

[Lisa Liel]

On 11/8/2011 12:14 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> 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?)

Because it's midrashic.  That doesn't mean aggadic, necessarily.  
There's midrash halakha and midrash aggadah.

> In the first place, his erecting the mishkan on his own is midrash 
> itself.
>
> What are you talking about?  It's an explicit pasuk.

No, it's a literal reading of a pasuk.  When Rambam says Mashiach is 
going to build the Beit HaMikdash, do you think he means that he's going 
to do it all with his own hands?

>> 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.

<eyes rolling>

> 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)

I don't have a copy of Igrot Moshe.  I'd have to see that inside.

Lisa