[Avodah] Torah Geography & Dream Brachos

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 04:00:33PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
: PS: Another thing which may have confused R Chanina is that the Euphrates
: is the *north-eastern* border of EY.  And as everyone knows, Bavel is on
: the Euphrates.  Therefore it stands to reason that Bavel must be north of
: EY.  The fallacy here is that the Euphrates is a long river, and it flows
: south-west, not south.  The point at which it is one of the borders of EY
: is in its far upper reaches, near Aleppo.

I don't think it was confusion. Rather, one needs to enter an entirely
different worldview. We see the world in terms of maps, and therefore
think geometrically. Without maps, the world becomes more of a network of
relationships. Travel paths between nodes. IOW, the confusion is in the
communication across the centuries; in thinking we mean the same thing
-- we're talking vectors, they're talking travel routes. The disjoin is
not between R' Chanina's description and reality.

To get from EY to Bavel, one would normally travel the Fertile
Cresecent. Thus, the path from EY to Bavel did head NE, as did the chain
of Rosh Chodesh fire signals. And that's what NE would mean to R' Chanina;
not a vector in space.

Along related (but non-identical) lines...
Is Israel SE or NE of the US? The Great Circle shortest path is NE.
Traveling today, we head NE. However, I don't think that's common pesaq
when setting up a shul. I couldn't find historical travel routes from
from Mediterranian to Nort America, to see if the same notion holds.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A life of reaction is a life of slavery,
micha at aishdas.org        intellectually and spiritually. One must
http://www.aishdas.org   fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            -Rita Mae Brown