[Avodah] Mekor of TIDE, and a kashya

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 02:46:39PM +0300, Michael Makovi wrote:
: In The Living Hirschian Legacy (Feldheim), Rabbi Shelomo Danziger has
: a wonderful essay, "Rav S. Hirsch - His Torah Im Derech Eretz [in Heb
: char] Ideology"
...
: Beautiful words that are worth being brought for their own sake, IMHO.
: But I have a kashya: Rav Hirsch on MANY MANY MANY occasions, emphasizes
: that Torah is the ikkar and derech eretz is the tofeil (his explicit
: words). But if Torah is the form and derech eretz the matter, is not
: Torah the tofeil and derech eretz the ikkar? And kol va-chomer if derech
: eretz kadmah et ha-torah!

I have written about the SE's explanation of TIDE as Aristotilian tzurah
vechomer a few times in the past.

Aristo identified form with function. After all, a knife has the shape
it does to serve as a knife. Similarly, the choice of other properies,
its hardness (by using metal), its weight, malleability, size, etc...

Tzurah without chomer is an idea. This is why the Rambam calls mal'akhim
"sikhliim nivdalim" in the MN I:49 and as "tzurah belo golem" in Yesodei
haTorah 2:5 (a/k/a 2:3). And why two identical tzuros that have no chomer
are actually the same tzurah, a question he addresses in YhT 2:6 (a/k/a
2:5) WRT how the mal'akhim are distinct.

So, the perfectly formulated idea of a knife is the tzurah of that knife.

Once they are physically implementented in chomer, then they become
"things".

The body vs the soul is tzurah vs chomer. (Which is why I suggested
that the relationship between mind and brain isn't causal, but different
levels of abstraction. The brain's structure/activity embodies part of
the form of the soul.) After all, the soul is the purpose for the body,
and the more idea / intellect part.

So to answer your question, saying that the Torah is the tzurah we are
supposed to impart on the chomer of olam hazeh does make it the function,
purpose, and soul of existence. Which is I think what you meant by
"ikkar".

And in another way, makes neither the ikkar. An object is truly a
*synthesis* of tzurah vekhomer. You can view it as fully the tzurah, with
the chomer being meaningless as it has no adjectives without the tzurah
(short of the one attribute of mamashus). Or you can view it as fully
the chomer, with the tzurah a blueprint -- histakeil beOraisa uvara alma.
As with any real synthesis, you can see it as a completion of the thesis,
a completion of the antithesis, or something that is really neither --
depending on choice of perspective.

To RSRH, the ikkar is TIDE. Not one or the other.

-- Tangents --

And if we were switching to Plato, the capital-I Idea, also called the
Universal Form, of a knife is the pristine concept of knife that all
actual knives implement to various amounts. The Idea of Knife is the
real, knives that we have are shadows of it on the cave wall. Aristotle
believed that the notion of a knife was a human grouping of all things
that happen to have the same fearute. The set is a consequence of the
choice of members.

The Rambam then adds the notion of fuzzy sets, and therefore that someone
could be more or less in the set of human beings, and thus subject to
more or less hashgachah peratis (MN II:18).

The Form, the Idea, is the Tzelem E-lokim. The closer one's mind holds
that Tzurah, the closer one is to tzelem E-lokim, the more human one is.

-- end tangents --

... [skipping alot] ...
: Therefore, anything about Yafet is irrelevant. True, Rav Hirsch brings
: Yafet as the paradigmatic source of true noble derech eretz (see end
: of parshat Noach, on Yafet dwelling in the tent of Shem; see also his
: essays on Chanuka), but any derech eretz will do for TIDE; Yafet is simply
: the optimal and the paradigm. TIDE applied to ancient Semitic/Oriental
: culture as much as to Persian culture as to Greco-Roman culture as to
: Arabic culture, etc.
: 
: I still stand by Rabbi Berkovits being TIDE for Israel, however. Much
: of what he says overlaps with Rav Kook's vision for how modern society
: and Torah will work together in Israel.

It doesn't work because in RSRH's worldview, we can and are even
supposed to get higher culture as part of being world citizens. The
kohanim of the world, yes, but members of a universal community, the
"agudah achas la'asos retzonekha". REB speaks of Jewish culture qua being
Jewish. It's a different thing altogether. They have different stances
on the relationship of univeralism and particularism, and RSRH's stance
is part of his concept of DE.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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