[Avodah] More Philosophy, If Anyone's Up to It

[Ira Tick]

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 9:22 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> But who said He does?
>
> : end, we believe in G-d and paint Him as an actor in our lives with abilities
> : and actions and faculties analogous in some way to our own.  As I said,
> : despite their frustrations and caveats, the Rishonim seem to say this
> : clearly, especially R Saadia Gaon in Emunos V'Deos...
>
> Actually, RSG speaks of three kinds of attributes WRT A-lmighty:
> 1- negative attibutes (what He isn't)
> 2- attributes of His relationship to us, rather than of He Himself
> 3- descriptions of how His actions make Him appear to us.
>
> (The Rambam seems to fold the latter two categories together.)

I'm sorry, I'm not an expert on Emunos V'Deos, but I read explicitly a
translation in R J David Bleich's book "With Perfect Faith,"  wherein
RSG discusses the problems of attributes and characteristics of G-d
vis-a-vis His role as Creator, namely Life, Power (Ability ?), and
Knowledge.   Now even the Rambam, with His doctrine of negative
theology (which has its problems, mainly that its an avoidance
tactic...for example to say that G-d is not knowledgeable, just not
ignorant) describes G-d as "the Knowledge, the Knowing, and the
Knower" all at once (seems a lot like the state of existence of the
soul...)  Knowledge is not external or relationship based; it is not
an observation of activity caused by the mind -- it is the mind.  Life
is more than the absence of death, as the Rambam claims.  In fact, the
only conceivable notion of death is the absence of life -- of
activity, of function, of experience and awareness...

Sometimes I think that Medieval Jewish Philosophers were so anxious to
combat the blasphemies of Christianity and Paganism, that they reduced
G-d to something He is not in the Talmud -- a completely paradoxical,
unidentifiable, abstract idea that somehow correlates with the
Personal G-d of Scripture.  The Gemara in Brachos 10a instead compares
G-d to the soul of man, making Him more the sort of Soul of the
Universe, Who's Will sustains and directs the spiritual and physical
world which we inhabit. If man is holy, then G-d is Holy, in an
absolute way that transcends us, just as His Will (and its effects)
and His Machshavos transcend ours.  This is the G-d I believe in.

> I'm identifying the
> higher metaphysical entities with emotion. You asked (roughly) whether
> qedushah is a metaphysical state or an emotion. I'm answering with the
> suggestion that they are the same thing. Human emotions are metaphysical
> entities; the state called qedushah is a real and ontological entity.
> It's also the feeling of qedushah.
>
> This is how the tradition of the Gra and developed by the baalei mussar
> asserts that repairing one's soul is the same thing as repairing one's
> middos and desires.
>
> Also, REED (MmE vol I pp 304-312) identifies the higher olamos with more
> noble ways of perceiving reality. (I wrote about this at more length at
> <http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/beshalach.pdf>.) Not quite the same
> thing, but IMHO part of the same larger picture. The idea that these
> metaphysical realities and psychological ones aren't quite distinct.

I still like this part, but its novel to me that kedusha (forgive me,
but the "q" thing drives me insane)  and the experience of kedusha
would be one and the same.  I think I can get used to that idea,
except that when I'm asleep, is my soul no longer holy?  Also, is it
G-d's perception / feeling of kedusha (presumably associated with
Himself, a sort of sense of self-worth) that makes Him Holy?  (I know
you don't believe that G-d has perception or feeling, but humor me
here, because frankly, your conception of G-d is close to meaningless
for me, unless you're saying that G-d is just some Spirit of Holiness,
without any other dimensions, including knowledge of His Creation,
which would bother me.  And don't try to claim He has knowledge, but
not experience, because precedent calls for both if any one is
present, unless G-d has the instinct of a snail--which is greater
blasphemy to me)

I myself believe that "higher olamos" are an enlightened sense of
perception or experience, because I have trouble believing in realms
of angels, etc.  However, I always believed that my emotional
perception of people and G-d reflected something more about them than
the fact that they too experience those emotions in association with
me...

Am I not making my concerns clear?  Please avoid countering with more
Medieval Philosophy, unless it really resolves the problems I'm
discussing...  My G-d will never be some unconscious Holy Spirit or
the "Seichal HaPoel" of Aristotle or anything like that...  I really
don't know where they got that from.  This is not, by the way, because
I consider myself an simpleton, unable to process philosophic ideas.
I'm not a hyper-rationalist and I am able to deal with the abstract,
but I don't appreciate unnecessary paradoxes that are created to
explain away real ones...

Forgive me if I'm being caustic, but these issues are very important to me.

Look forward to hearing from you again,

IJT