[Avodah] Rambam on Metaphors

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 09:35:26PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: 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."

Yes, that is quite logical. And I also thought ayin tachas ayin was
peshat. However, the gemara says it's a derashah, and numerous rishonim
tell us that the halakhah is the derashah and the moral import is in
the peshat.

Which is why I formulated the notion that derashah is another way of
saying formialized rules for determining idiom. After all, halakhah is a
legal system, so having rules for what can be taken idiomatically makes
sense.

I am posting more to embellish my earlier idea.

R' Aqiva's system of 19 rules of derashah are pretty syntatic. "Akh" is
a mi'ut, "es" is a ribui. Kelal uperat etc... are the product of R'
Yishma'el who said "diberah Torah belashon benei adam". A kelal is
defined by what the phrase means, not by the choice of words. But lashon
benei adam includes idiom.

I'm now thinking that R' Aqiva understood derashah as a system of
textual queues. That it's only R' Yishma'el in particular, because he
opened the door to something being "just idiomatic", who understood
derashah to tell us when there is a nafqa mina in the presence or
absence of the idiom or turn of phrase.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder]
micha at aishdas.org        isn't complete with being careful in the laws
http://www.aishdas.org   of Passover. One must also be very careful in
Fax: (270) 514-1507      the laws of business.    - Rav Yisrael Salanter