[Avodah] Choshen

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:17:41 -0400
Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 01:52:51AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
> : Yes, Rashi says that the original language of mankind, the "safah achas",  
> : was Loshon Hakodesh.  However there is no suggestion in Rashi's words that  
> : "Clearly Rashi felt the bilbul leshonos was incomplete...."  You are making  an 
> : inference based on what you yourself believe, but there is nothing in  Rashi to 
> : support that inference.
> 
> I just meant that if Rashi believes that the pre-Hapelagah language was
> LhQ and yet the post-Hapelagah new languages have cognate words to LhQ,
> then clearly the bilbul wasn't complete. Leaving us words that weren't
> changed beyond recognition.

Your conclusion only follows if we grant the implicit, and in my view,
rather dubious, assumption that ante-Dispersion "Lashon Ha'Kodesh" /
Biblical Hebrew was a static and unchanging language.  Insofar as it
was a *living* language, it is prima facie perfectly plausible that
some words of Biblical Hebrew did not exist prior to the dispersion,
and are indeed subsequently introduced loan-words from other languages.

> And so I think it is implicit in Rashi, a statement of a conclusion I drew
> (that was the point of that post), rather than being only my own belief.

The above illustrates why I am categorically opposed to ascribing a
position to Ploni based on logic of the form:

Ploni asserts X
X implies Z
ergo Ploni believes Z

since more often than not, such logic really involves an additional,
implicit step, and is equivalent to the following:

Ploni asserts X
I assume (consciously or unconsciously) Y1, Y2, Y3 ... and
X, coupled with Y1, Y2, Y3 ..., implies Z

The various Y's are often what the mathematicians and logicians
deliciously call "non-trivial assumptions".

Yitzhak
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