[Avodah] Time and Emunah

[MPoppers at kayescholer.com]

In Avodah Digest V23#186, R'Micha wrote:
> However, we have a universal minhag to say qaddish for 11 months based
on the notion that the niftar, if he is not a rasha, spends a maximum
of that time in gehenom. Note that the niftar is outside of space, but
is assumed to still experience time, and not only that, but time
roughly the same as someone moving at usual speeds in relation to the
surface of planet earth.
> However, the existence of time need not be as an external reality. The
notion that time is a product of human perception of that reality
would be sufficient to support bechirah. And WRT what I called the
second question of time, that of its flow from past to future, REED
says just that -- that it's a product of our perceptions as shaped by
the eitz hada'as. See MmE vol II pp 150-154, the discussion at v14n11-
n67, or just cheat and get my summary of the ma'amar as per the end of
the discussion, at <http://tinyurl.com/3bqnjs>.
> IOW, it's not important whether our bodies experience time as we
perceive it. What the Torah discusses is the perception, time as part
of a soul's existence. <
In support of what small amount of Micha's thoughts I can bend my mind
over: can we not infer from Ma'aseh B'reishis that time preceded that which
is part of this world, even as it's a way (similar to anthropomorphism) in
which this-worldly creations can comprehend what essentially is beyond
comprehension?

A guten Shabbes and all the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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