[Avodah] Birkat Kohanim

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, October 26, 2007 7:17 am, Richard Wolberg wrote:
: mi wrote:   No. Yir'ah is related to fear for a real reason. Life is
: played for high stakes; sometimes people need reminders of that.

: What happened to midas chesed and rachamim?  Your position would more
: accurately reflect Shammai. If that's what you like, I won't tell
: Hillel.

What happened was simply that we were discussing a symbol of din. The
two coexist; discussing one says nothing about the other.

You err in your description of the tannaim. Hillel and Shammai rarely
disagreed. It was batei Hillel veShammai who had all the machloqesin.
And chazal say it is because they didn't spend enough time watching
their rabbeim. IOW, there was little philosophical difference between
the teachers, this was a failure in the students' picking up the
transmission. They got all the info, but not the feel, the emotional
responses. The Maharal says that since Hillel was the nasi, involved
in the community all day, the students confused the role with the
person and only saw his chessed -- not the balance. Similarly
Shammai's students only saw the av beis din, not the whole person.

::     rw wrote: With the poison, you're dealing with an inanimate
:: situation, but with HaShem, you would expect more understanding.
:: Also, the analogy, though appealing, really isn't satisfying (at
:: least to me).

: mi wrote:   The poison isn't equally "with Hashem"?

: That's exactly my point. Poison isn't equally with HaShem, therefore,
: I expect a lot more from HaShem.

I disagree with your point. Poison /is/ equally "with Hashem."

So then, what did David say to Gad when he asked to fall to Hashem
rather than people (as we repeat in Tachanun)? Well, when it comes to
people, Hashem could choose yenem's bechirah chafshi over saving me.
There are more factors in play in His decision. But I agree with REED
that when poison kills someone, that's Hashem choosing to follow
predictable rules so as to allow us the choice of ignoring Him.

Poison is no different than His creating a light to signal His
Presence, even though someone who accidentally look at it will suffer.
In both cases Hashem created something and let it obey rules that
allow harm to come to people.

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