[Avodah] tzaddik

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 09:33:05AM -0400, Eli Turkel wrote:
: There are many differences between the Moreh and Yad Chazakah.
: As Micha points out one is in the definition of tzaddik.
...
: RYBS gnerally seemed to prefer the reasons mentioned in the Yad over
: that of the Moreh.
: He mentions it explicitly for shofar

I don't think we can generalized from taamei hamitzvos to philosophy
in general.

I think there is a big piece to the puzzle missing about how the Rambam
relates actions, ideas and middos to each other; and if we had it, this
would make a lot of these questions go away.

The concept of "taam hamitzvah" is open to multiple interpretations. RDR
brings R Prof Isadore Twersky's suggestion that the Moreh is giving
the purpose of mitzvos, whereas the Yad is giving motivations. However,
there are many such chiluqim that could be suggested.

The Chinukh speaks of mishoreshei hamitzvah -- a partial description
of the conceptual source of the mitzvah (the "avos" mentioned in my
previous post).

RSRH speaks of lessons HQBH is teaching the performer.

RYBS doesn't engage in either project, he's too Brisker to think they're
possible. Instead, he talks about lessons we can draw, post-facto,
from our encounter with them. "Hermeneutics", as he puts it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous