[Avodah] anarchy/libertarianism

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 09:20:52AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
:>In general, the Rambam places yedi'ah on a pedestal much higher than most
:>of us would. If you don't think that a philosopher is one step below a
:>navi, then I don't know if you can invoke further implications of that
:>hashkafah to prove your point.

:  The nature of prophecy is really not closely related to the Rambam's 
: point in the PHM, in spite of the polemical drasha there.

There is also the Moreh 2:36, which states that intellectual perfection
is the main precondition for being capable of nevu'ah.

: >I think most of us today put a person's ehrlachkeit and deveiqus on a
: >more central pedestal than intellectual comprehension.

: Throughout Jewish literature, from the Bible to aharonei aharonim, you 
: find warnings that piety which exceeds understanding is dangerous ...

That doesn't mean the point is understanding. It could be the point is
piety, but piety without the handmaiden of understanding is self
destructive.

: (though, I should add, you also find warnings about the contrary).  
: Tangentially, I don't understand how polling produces evidence (and the 
: Rambam explicitly rejects determining one's opinions through polling).

In any case, I acknowledge the machloqes you point out. I'm saying that
either derekh is divrei E-lokim Chaim, however, in practice, most of us
follow derakhim that emphasize ethics and/or an experiential deveiqus
over comprehension. It's not a matter of the Rambam's correctness, it's
a matter of the usability of his position given where we stand. And I
was saying that for most of us, this position doesn't fit.

My problem with the Rambam is more the Shuby question... Personally, I
am incapable of believing that a person with Downs, who is capable of an
incredible emunah peshutah (he doesn't reason his way out of believing
that G-d is as real as a person he never met) but less compehension,
actually not only gets a harder olam hazeh, but less hana'ah miziv
haShechinah when it's all over. I can't do it, because my son Shuby
makes me nogei'ah bedavar, but I still think the objection is sound.

: >AishDas's [borrowed] motto, which is just my own understanding of Dr
: >Nathan Birnbaum's motto for haOlim, is "Daas Rachamim Tif'eres". (See
: >RYGB's JO (?} article at <http://www.aishdas.org/rygb/birnbaum.htm>.)
: >Daas in this context is being used in a very different way than the
: >Rambam's philosophical understanding of what Hashem isn't. To DNB, daas is
: >knowing G-d, not knowing /about/ G-d, that which includes hislahavus and
: >hachna'ah.

: See the discussion of the phrase "hesed mishpat utzedakah" in MN III:54 
: (the final chapter).

Since this is a topic central to the hosting organization and I assume
many people are too busy or lazy to look it up, here is Friedlander's
translation for them (transliterations fixed for ASCII text):
    He says, however, that man can only glory in the knowledge of God
    and in the knowledge of His ways and attributes, which are His
    actions, as we have shown (Part 1. liv.) in expounding the passage,
    "Show me now thy ways" (Exod. xxxviii. 13). We are thus told in this
    passage that the Divine acts which ought to be known, and ought to
    serve as a guide for our actions, are, chesed, "loving-kindness,"
    mishpat, "judgment," and tzedakah, "righteousness." Another very
    important lesson is taught by the additional phrase, "in the earth."
    It implies a fundamental principle of the Law; it rejects the theory
    of those who boldly assert that God's providence does not extend
    below the sphere of the moon, and that the earth with its contents
    is abandoned...

I think the Rambam is going for something fundamentally different Daas
Rachamim Tif'eres, even though both are tripod. DoRoT (if I may now
coin a pleasant acronym) is a particular perspective on Torah, Avodah,
Gemilus Chassadim, where TAGC gives us three relationships (self, HQBH,
others), and DoRoT spells out our goals for each (in a different order).
The Rambam is giving a a trialectic, three conflicting goals that we
have to sort out in any particular relationship.

More to the point of the original topic, he does appear to imply here
that yedi'ah is a stepping stone to emulation, and not an end in itself.
Although the closing words of the seifer restore things.

I think the truth is in the Rambam's understanding of akrasia (why
people do the wrong things). According to Aristo (at least some takes
on what he's saying, and I'm betting that's the Rambam's source), the
reason for akrasia is that we make our decisions based on opinion. IOW,
to the Rambam, da'as in the sense of yedi'ah and da'as in the sense of
dei'os are sides of the same coin.

Whereas we tend to derakhim based on models of the mind more in line
with Hume and Freud, which were developed by the Besh"t, the Gra and R'
Yisrael Salanter. This is where the Besh"t gets an experiential
definition of deveiqus, RYS speaks of middos, taavos and negi'os, etc...
The Rambam's piece here doesn't fit the rest of our puzzle.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Live as if you were living already for the
micha at aishdas.org        second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org   time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning