[Avodah] HQBH speaks through History [was R' Angel & GeirusRedux]

[Michael Makovi]

> Please do not conflate TIDE with TuM.  They are two very different
> philosophies, often at odds with each other.  This has been extensively
> discussed on A/A before you came aboard.
> --R' Toby Katz
> =============

Rabbi Shelomoh Danziger discusses how the mekor of TIDE is that before
a person is a Jew placed in his particular spiritual place, he is a
human placed in this physical world - derech eretz kadmah et ha-Torah
(or something like that). G-d placed us in this world to live in it
and to develop it as per Bereshit 1:28. Rabbi Weinberg says that Torah
is the form and derech eretz the matter. How then can understanding
our world not have independent value? How can you fulfill the mitzvah
to conquer earth if you don't understand it? Torah is the how, but
derech eretz is the what, and how can the how exist without the what?

If chol has no independent value, but is only something to be subdued
and conquered by Torah, why not simply sidestep the issue and ban all
chol? Make a Torah-only environment and be done with it. If TIDE is to
avoid irrelevancy, then chol must have value - there must be an
imperative to have im derech eretz and not Torah-only. Torah may be
higher than chol, but chol must have its own value if there is an
reason to have IDE. Rav Hirsch said that TIDE is an eternal value;
surely he would have said that having DE is an unfortunately necessary
evil if that is what he meant. That TIDE is eternal must mean that
there is a positive value to having DE.

Mikha'el Makovi