[Avodah] tfilat haderech and birchat hagomel

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 02:17:55PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> Where does the gemara relate tan-du to the nachash?  Surely that's RYBS's
> own chidush; so relying on it to distinguish the two chazakot would be
> begging the question.

Is it an actual logical step to identify "ve'el isheikh teshuqaseikh"
with tav lemeisiv tan du? I am unable to imagine a way in which they
could be unrelated. Is there a definition of "teshuqah" that would not
imply that there will always be SOME ELEMENT OF HER DRAWN even to an
inferior husband over being alone?

(The all-caps phrase in the prior sentence is important. Tev lemeisiv
doesn't deny the possibility of levels on which she's happier to dump
the creep. Just that there is always some level on which it hurts in a
way it wouldn't otherwise (eg what "the creep" would be going through).

In 2009 <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol24/v24n096.shtml#11> you wrote
(in part):
> Only if you interpret "ve'el isheich teshukateich" that way in the
> first place.  RYBS's interpretation is not muchrach.  Rashi on chumash
> understands it differently.  (Rashi's explanation is also difficult
> to understand as an eternal and universal statement of human nature,
> since it seems contradicted by the metziut, but that's another
> discussion.)

I think you're referring to Rashi (Bereishis 3:16 "ve'el isheikh"),
which says:
    for tashmish, and even so, you will not have the brazenness to demand
    it verbally, but he will rule over you. Everything is from him,
    and not you.

But the next Rashi ("teshuqaseikh") says
    ta'avaseikh, like "a yearning/thirsty [fig.] soul" (Yeshaiah 29:8)

Rashi appears to be giving a Freudian explanation of RYBS's
point. Although RYBS is discussing existentialism, and Freud is speaking
on a more transitory, pyschological, plane.

In any case, the phrase is some kind of attachment even according
to the first Rashi, and thus I can't imagine how it wouldn't be
a cause of "tav lemeisiv".


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
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