[Avodah] foreign influence on Judaism

[Eli Turkel]

Micha writes
<<Which came first -- the chicken or the egg? Perhaps the Rambam's
willingness to believe that all kishuf is trickery was because he had
to explain why it would be assur otherwise.>>

Given that most rishonim disagree about kishuf being trickery I find
this hard to accept. In general when Jews & gentiles develop similar
customs and institutions it is not always clear who copied from whom
or if they developed independently at the same time.
Thus, for example some of R. Chaim's shitah has much in common with
philosophies of his day though it is quite clear he did not directly
know of them

Let me quote from a recent article of Woolf in BDD

"Many years ago the late Harry Wolfson ointed iut that the
attempt to synthesize Greek Philosophy and the literature of Divine
Revelation is the leitmotif of all medieval philosophy whether
Muslin,Jewish or Christian. Jewish luminaries such as R. Sa'adiah
Gaon, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Ibn Daud and Maimonides shared this ambition
to demonstrate the identity of Revelation and Reason of Torah and
Aristotle. It was a daring attempt to sensitize, energize and rarify
Judaism"
"The epistemology espoused br Rabbi Soloveitchik turned this medieval
tradition on its head"
In the article he attempts to bring cases where halakhah impacted on
his philosophic outlook. He is convinced of the converse but has
difficulties because of datings of RYBS's works

gmar chatima tova

-- 
Eli Turkel