[Avodah] Rambam on Metaphors

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From: Michael Makovi _mikewinddale at gmail.com_ 
(mailto:mikewinddale at gmail.com) 


>>R' Rich Wolpoe asked about the difference between yad hashem  being
metaphorical and eiyin tachat eiyin (hereafter ETE) *not*  being
metaphorhical, within the confines of Rambam's own  philosphy.

I'm not sure I fully understand the question, however, but I  will
respond to what the question appears to be. As far as I can tell,  the
question appears to be: why can we allegorize yad hashem but not  ETE?....

....But the point is that the Torah's peshat yields only when  reason is
certain. If anything, reason declares that ETE cannot be literal;  as
Hazal note, what if a one-eyed man blinds a two-eyed man, etc.?   If
anything, then, ETE *is* metaphorical, based on both reason and
Hazal's  Sinaitic tradition that ETE is not literal. <<
 
 
Michael Makovi

 
 
>>>>
I'm behind in Avodah and others may have made the  point I want to make 
here, but anyway.  I want to say that there are  different ways of translating 
the word "tachas" and that in this case it is not  that one translation is 
literal and the other allegorical.  It is that  there are simply different 
ways of translating or understanding the word  "tachas."   I'm going to say 
that it means "instead of" and please  indulge me while I point out that there 
are also different ways of understanding  "instead."
 
Suppose somebody broke your favorite vase and there was a law,  "a vase 
instead of a vase, a vase for a vase."  Some people would say that  means, he 
broke your vase, now you get to break his vase -- simple revenge,  which to 
many human beings is satisfying and makes them feel that at least a  rough 
justice has been done.  If I can't have my vase at least I have the  
satisfaction of knowing that he can't have his, either.
 
Now other people would peer at that same law, "a vase instead of a vase"  
and could quite logically understand it to mean, "He broke your vase and now 
he  has to give you another vase, and if he broke an irreplaceable 14th 
century Ming  vase, or a Faberge egg, then he has to do the next best thing, 
which is--pay you  the monetary worth of the article that he destroyed."
 
Neither of these two understandings of "a vase for a vase" is  allegorical.
 
To me it just seems so clear and so obvious that the Torah understand  
"ayin tachas ayin" the second way -- the person who destroyed something of yours 
 has to replace it, or give you the nearest equivalent in value.  That  is 
not allegorical.  
 
What the Rambam has to say about metaphors I don't know, I'm sorry  that I 
have gone quite far away from the subject line, but then we always do,  here 
in Avodah-land.  I just think that the /pshaht/ of ayin tachas ayin is  
restoration, not revenge.
 
 
 
--Toby  Katz
==========



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