[Avodah] proofs of G-d

[Micha Berger]

RMYG and RnTK were kind enough to inform me my most resent attempt to
post failed. Pity, it was a long one. Let's see what I can remember of
it.

On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 08:34:06PM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: I find it strange that Rav Abramsky would assert that Rav Dessler
: was an apikorus...

We seem bound to repeat this thread, even though one iteration
(launched by the RNS ban) lasted for well over a year. So, to
summarize my position as developed so far...

1- Halachic process doesn't apply to true or false, but to determining
law. And so it usually doesn't apply to aggadita. HOWEVER... there are
cases where someone's beliefs about issues of aggadita impact the
halakhah -- stam yeinam, geirus, counting toward a minyan, etc... The
Rambam carefully rejects halachic process in cases where there is no
lemaaseh, he doesn't phrase it in terms of aggadita vs halakhah.

This is RGStudent's "Crossroads of Halakhah and Aggadah" idea,
developed here and later published as a book review of R"Dr Marc
Shapiro's work on the ikkarim.

It is therefore appropriate to speak of what we pasqen today.

2- Pesaq doesn't go backward in time. Just because we now consider
something assur doesn't mean we're condemning historical gedolim. This
is true whether speaking of kashrus or of any of the above halakhos.

Which is why Rabbi Hillel is still Rabbi Hillel, despite not believing
in bi'as hamoshiach. (BTW, note that when the calendar is credited to
him, it is implied that Rabbi Hillel expected a reconstituted
Sanhedrin to exist before the calendar started failing. This fits
Rashi's shitah that R' Hillel expected a messianic era, not a person
who would be melekh hamoshiach.)

3- Besides, being a kofeir requires rebellion. The lack of a critical
belief is the shiur of how rebellious the person must be to qualify as
a kofeir. But someone who comes upon a krum hashkafah through honest
acceptance of the ideas of the Torah and reaching wrong conclusions is
not a kofeir, apiqoreis or meshumad.

And so, R' Hillel and anyone else wouldn't qualify anyway.

4- Pesaq has to accurately reflect metzi'us. IOW, if someone pasqens
that belief XYZ is kefirah, he is presuming (1) it is false, and (2)
it is too far from the core belief necessary for the AYH of the kelal
and the individual. (I mention kelal because the incomplete list of
halakhos  involving kefirah I gave above were how one person is
supposed to treat another.)

And so, if XYZ happens to actually be true, is the pesaq relevent? And
thus, how can anyone apply the pesaq to themselves? If someone is
declared a kofeir for believing XYZ, then he believes they were wrong
in the metzi'us by presuming XYZ is false, and the pesaq is simply
beta'us!

5- Pesaq has to fit the heuristic. You can't take a shitah that
follows rov/kol rishonim and at least a mi'ut of notable acharonim and
declare it outside eilu va'eilu. There is nothing in the system that
could outweigh that kind of thinking.

Even if we believe they were wrong on the aggadic level, there is no
way we can have the authority to turn that incorrectness into a
halachic statement. There is simply nothing an acharon can do against
rov rishonim halachically. At most we could decide the belief is
wrong, but of no halachic consequence to those who are mistaken.

--

As for the specific issue of bechirah and HP:

In the past we quoted the Or haChaim on why the brothers threw Yoseif
into a pit rather than kill him outright. They wanted to give HQBH
room to save Yoseif bederekh hateva. If they killed him outright, they
would never know if Yoseif deserved to die *or if their bechirah
caused his death*.

--

Speaking on a personal level, I can't help but believe in universal HP
because (not despite!) of my secular education.

A- Chaos theory. This is that bit about how a butterfly flapping its
wings in Africa can be the difference between whether or not there is
a tornado in Kansas. History is a complex place where everything is
interconnected in feedback loops that often magnify the effect of the
microscopic.

In short, thanks to Chaos Theory, I do not think that Hashgachah Minis
and HP are seperable concepts. The Besh"t's example of a leaf that
fell on this side rather than that will perforce eventually have
macroscopic effects that will impact at least one human being.
Similarly, anything that impacts one person will somehow definitely
touch the lives of others. Things ripple outward. "For want of a
horseshoe nail, the kingdom was lost."

B- So far, the belief is that Quantum Mechanics implies that under it
all, the laws of physics only define probabilities. Okay, group
together populations of particles in numbers we can't imagine and the
statistics are so close to certainty as to make no difference. (If you
flip a coin 10 trillion times, the odds of getting something so close
to half heads and half tails as to be unnoticeable different is very
very high.)

I say "so far" because Joy Christian (that's his name) seems to have
found an algebra for which Bell's Inequality doesn't hold, and it may
all be a hidden variable after all. I won't bother explaining that, as
it's long, involved, off topic, and an answer to a question you
wouldn't have if you didn't follow my comment. Back on topic.

If the universe is statistical in any way, HP and teva do not
contradict. The laws say X must happen P percent of the time, but HQBH
could combine QM and chaos theory to get whatever results He wants by
just choosing which cases are that P.


My biggest problem is understanding how to define the difference
between HP and teva. HQBH created both. The rishonim discuss a
difference in terms of teva as a hypostatis, a seichel interposed
between HQBH and us. Fits Aristotilian and neo-Platonic metpahysics,
but we have no equivalent. Who acted, Hashem, or that seichel? In
today's physics, teva is a feature of the geometry of the universe. It
inheres in space, time, matter and energy. An attribute, not a beryah.

With a modern understanding of how the world works, The only
difference seems to be whether we attribute His decision to the
individual case, or to a general rule set into motion nearly 6,000
millenia ago. Did Hasehm decide on 9/11 to save this tzadiq and allow
that one to perish, or did He create a world in which that would be
the outcome if people chose to do what they did that morning? Hashem
doesn't have a concept of time, so mitzido, it's the same decision no
matter when we attribute it to. If we view it in terms of 6 millenia
beforehand, we're saying that HQBH knew when He set up teva, that He
was setting up a universe in which hu yichyeh, vehu yamus.

To put it another way... Is it defying HP when Hashem chooses to allow
an evil person's bechirah delay another person's sechar va'onesh? Or
to allow the bechirah possible through hester panim, and thus allow
the expected natural event to occur? Aren't those too His deciding
what should happen? When speaking of the Borei who set everything into
motion, isn't His decision not to act the same thing as His decision
to set things up so that that inaction would have a particular
outcome? In which case, didn't the Aibishter really act, as part of
the "set up"?

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv