[Avodah] An old Pshat and a Question About Milchig on Shavuos

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 06:22:32AM -0400, Samuel Svarc wrote:
: I must say that I'm very surprised. "Not reality"? When you bite into a
: fruit tree's bark you taste any fruity flavors? It was a direct command from
: HKB"H that in reality was disobeyed. If you eliminate the freewill from the
: malachim then instead you're saying that HKB"H is the one who fights with
: himself...

First, it's not we who are eliminating free will, it's baalei mesorah
of significant gravis.

Second, the question of evedence would not be whether we currently have
trees that taste like their fruit (other than esrog trees, which I can
tell you firsthand -- the leaves at least taste like esrogim). It's
whether somsone who might have tasted apple bark had the mal'akhim
complied would have experienced the same taste as from apples.

Third, the medrash as generally explained is that it's about the gap
between an ideal universe and this one. That gap is pinned on the
mal'akhim rebelling, but that could all be part of the mashel -- the
nimshal need only have a gap. Perhaps even we can say that the need for
a gap between real and ideal is why Hashem sends mal'akhim rather than
doing everything Himself.

Similarly, the trees may ideally taste like the fruit, and that is part
of the general gap between real and ideal. Or, the whole subject of tree
tastes could be a stand-in for the mashal's point.

Aside from the Maharal's nimshal whose "teaser" was already posted by RAF
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol25/v25n222.shtml#07>, here's R' Kook's
take (Orot haTeshuva 6:7; trans. B. Z. Bokser, The Lights of Penitence in
"Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook," published by Paulist Press in the "Classics
of Western Spirituality" series):
> At the inception of creation it was intended that the tree have the same
> taste as the fruit. All the supportive actions that sustain any general
> worthwhile spiritual goal should by right be experienced in the soul with
> the same feeling of elation and delight as the goal itself is experienced
> when we envision it. But earthly existence, the instability of life,
> the weariness of the spirit when confined in a corporate frame brought
> it about that only the fruition of the final step, which embodies the
> primary ideal, is experienced in its pleasure and splendor. The trees
> that bear the fruit, with all their necessity for the growth of the fruit
> have, however, become coarse matter and have lost their taste. This is
> the failing of the "earth" because of which it was cursed when Adam was
> also cursed for his sin.

The difference between the Maharal and RAYK is slight, and possibly not
in their understanding of the medrash as much as RAYK is building on
his general take on the non-reality of chol and gashmiyus.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha at aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
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