[Avodah] Faur's rewrite of history (was Re: RAYK's Orot - Criticism of RSRH?)

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2009 at 11:38:11PM -0800, Simon Montagu wrote:
: Your style is rather telegraphic here, and I may be mis-parsing, also I
: never heard of Faur before today, but surely everybody agrees that the
: *publisher* of the Zohar was a Spanish Jew? Where is the absurd rewrite?

I ws telegraphing a topic I had out with RMM repeatedly.

Jose Faur's version of history is one in which the Rambam had the only
aauthentic mesorah, a continuation of the ge'onim, qabbalah was inventd
by the Ashkenazim in a power play to legitimize their authrity despite
the geonic tradition. Along the way he trashes most Ashkenazi rishonim,
depicts all of Sepharard as rationalist, etc...

Prof Faur is personally O, in that he fully follows the Yad as understood
by Andalusiaan mesorah. But he teaches at JTS.

My point was that RMM was repeating this notion that the Sepharadim were
rationalists. The Ibn Ezra was not, and R' Moshe de Leon certainly wasn't
(althugh he was Castillian, not Andalusian).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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