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

[Michael Makovi]

> The TuM ideal
> of "two mountains" -- two independent and equally valuable bodies of
> knowledge, secular knowledge and Torah -- is foreign to the TIDE ideal of
> obtaining secular knowledge in order to further one's avodas Hashem and
> passing all knowledge through the prism of Torah.
> R' Toby Katz

Prefacing that I have barely studied any TuM (rather, I have studied
mostly TIDE), I'll remark that at a talk by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein,
the talk was prefaced by a vort on Avot, the mehalech ba-derech, that
if glancing up from your Torah, to a tree, is an interruption in your
Torah, then of course you're chayav; but if you see the tree as part
of your avodat hashem, if Torah and trees is one seemless tapestry of
G-d's maaseh, then there's no interruption in looking up to the tree
from your Torah and you're not chayav. During the talk, as I noted
previously, Rabbi Lichtenstein noted that those who study chol
understand Sefer Bereshit better. Now, I'm definitely not learned in
TuM, but if there's any "two mountains", I didn't hear it there.

Anyone know of any good threads for me to read up on?

> A TIDE-ist /could/ accept R' Slifkin's wonderful books on science and Torah...
> R' Toby Katz

While Rav Hirsch's chumash presents a view of creation at odds with
evolution, his collected writings say that **IF** evolution is true,
then we'd simply reply that it shows His majesty that all He had to do
was create some original organism and the laws of evolution, and
voila! Rabbi Elias wants to say that Rav Hirsch would obviously not
accept evolution, given that the chumash was his last writing. I'd
however say that since evolution was far less proven then than it is
today, Rav Hirsch didn't bank any money on it as far as his practical
philosophy went (his chumash). But he was willing to present a
hypothetical argument for a hypothetical hypothesis, as a backup, just
in case. I'd compare it to Rashi saying that we don't read it kach,
but for those who do, the explanation is kach. Rashi obviously follows
the first reading, but presumably, if he had discovered more proof of
the second reading, he'd himself follow that reading.

> ...but could not read science articles in the NYT uncritically.

Neither does a good scientist, for that matter.

Mikha'el Makovi