[Avodah] Loshon Hora

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 07:39:13PM +0200, Ben Waxman wrote:
> And had they not spoken, perhaps Am Yisrael could have been created  
> without all the suffering.

I had thought something similar, but WRT another clash.

The 400 years in Avraham's nevu'ah begins with the first event in the
nevu'ah, Yitzchaq's birth (c.f. Ramban Shamos 12:40), rather than the
begining of the actual step in discussion, the shi'abud in Mitzrayim. IOW,
I would read "va'avadum ve'inu osam, 400 shanah" not as "... for 400
years" but "until the 400th year [of this nevu'ah."

Note that this makes it concurrent with the start Sarah's oppression
of Hagar, a Mitzri princess. Now, while HQBH tells Avraham that this
oppression is necessary or justified, it is still interesting that in
a sense, Mitzrayim begins when we [are forced to] oppress a Mitzri. Had
this not been necessary, perhaps the whole process of building BY would
have been much pleasanter.

Another example:

It took 40 years in the midbar to forge BY. 40 years is very symbolic
number -- it took 10 maamaros x 4 aspects to create the world (which
is why there are "40 chaser 1" melakhos or malkos), 40 days of rain
to rebirth the world, 40 se'ah of water in a miqvah (also rebirth),
40 days before the soul enters the fetus, etc...

But had the miraglim not given their report, perhaps the birth of
Israel would have taken only the 40 days of their travels. The
symbology doesn't mean the Meraglim's sin was appropriate.

And a far bigger example:

Because Chavah and Adam ate from the eitz hadaas, we now have a yeitzer
hara, yeitzer hatov, a split existence between olam hazeh and olam haba,
etc... The entire concept of what it means to be a person would have been
different. Should be say "and therefore something positive came out of
the cheit, it wasn't so bad after all"?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha at aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
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