[Avodah] Apikores?

[David Riceman]

Micha Berger wrote:
> As the LR put it,
> it's the application of HP to the realms of domeim, tzomeiach and chai
> that was the Besh"t's chiddush.
Isn't that the opinion that the Rambam attributes to the Kalam (in MN I:73)?
> However, another finding of the last century does make it difficult
> for hashgachah to be anything but all-or-nothing. This has to do with
> something called Chaos Theory. Cool topic, worth a Google. But the
> relevant point is that real-world systems have feedback loops, so that
> an immeasurably small difference in the start condition could have
> huge differences in final state.
Only some systems are chaotic.  Avalanche-prone mountains are, but 
pitched baseballs aren't.

> As for REED... RDR wrote:
> :> but this is plausible only if you accept that Rabbi Dessler's
> :> relentlessly spiritual perspective (yafeh sha'ah ahas shel tshuva
> :> uma'asim tovim mikol hayyei ha'olam haba) is really everyone's
> :> proper perspective.
>
> And then on On Tue, November 27, 2007 11:34 am, he added:
> : As a contrast see Dov Katz, Tenuath HaMussar, vol. 1, pp. 295-296 and
> : pp. 213-215.
>
> In REED's hyper-Kantian worldview, we don't know what's "out there",
> we only know what we impose on what's out there. The
> world-as-perceived. And therefore, someone with a physical perspective
> lives in olam ha'asiyah, where the laws of teva hold sway, and someone
> with a spiritual / moral one is in olam ha'yetzirah, where those laws
> hold. This is his explanation of nissim, expounding on a theme by the
> Maharal.
>
> REED also describes teva as an illusion caused by Hashem choosing
> hesteir panim through predictability. That illusion is limited,
> though, to the people who are NOT holding a relentlessly spiritual
> perspective. Although by this definition, the relentlessly spiritual
> would include only recipients of nissim (be they nigleh or nistar)
> such that moral law is more absolute (MmE's term, written in Hebrew
> letters) than physical law.
>
> RDK on pp 295-296 speaks of bitachon obviating the need for
> hishtadlus. That's certainly saying that bitachon is answered by HP.
> And implicitly, that HP is defined in terms of getting what you would
> otherwise work toward, not in terms of knowing that what you're
> getting is what you're supposed to. However, the standard of bitachon
> is very high.
>
> I'm not sure what's intended by the reference to 213-215. That's about
> RYS's plans for Paris. I didn't see mention of HP or bitachon there.
>   
I was trying to address a slightly different issue.  I'll try to expand 
on it here.  A couple of people whom I respect claimed that Rabbi 
Dessler had a more traditional limited view of hashgacha, yet I recalled 
(though I still can't find any citations) that he emphasises that God's 
justice applies not only to the sum total of a person's existence, but 
to each individual event.  How can we reconcile the two?

Let's consider the case of a person condemned to pick cotton his entire 
life, brutally beaten by cruel taskmasters, underfed and overworked and 
... (I'm sure you remember Uncle Tom's Cabin).  In the passage I cited 
(Michtav Me'Eliyahu, vol. 4, pp. 98-102) Rabbi Dessler says that this 
can be, not punishment, but part of the incomprehensible Divine Plan.  
How then, can it also represent perfect justice?

The rishonim generally take the pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die approach; 
God's justice applies not to each individual event, but to the sum total 
of olam hazeh and olam haba.  Rabbi Dessler takes the soul's 
perspective.  The soul doesn't care about all the tribulations it 
encounters, it views them all as opportunities to get closer to God.  So 
that, for the soul, being a slave in horrendous conditions isn't unjust, 
it's an opportunity.

I'm (to put it mildly) not thrilled with this attitude (though I find it 
a plausible reading of Rabbi Dessler) and as a contrast I cited Rabbi 
Lipkin's opinion that tending to other peoples needs in gashmiyus takes 
precedence over tending to their needs in ruhniyus.

David Riceman