[Avodah] Looking for sources about Chazal's Ruach Hakodesh

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 12:48:46PM -0500, hankman wrote:
: To go off on a slight tangent, I would like to get a clearer idea of
: what exactly constitutes "ideas acquired thru ruach hakodesh"? There seems
: to be an entire continuum of ideas that may come to a person through
: nevuah (chesyon), a malach, bas kol, gilui Eliyahu, ruach hakodesh,
: chalom, sod HaShem el yerai'ov, seyata DiShemaya, and finally "one's
: own" ideas...

The Rambam famously says -- and admittedly most rishonim actively
reject -- that any time we hear of someone seeing a mal'akh, the pasuq
is describing a chazon of nevu'ah.

I would think that even the Ramban et al would consider a conversation
with a mal'akh to be nevu'ah, as in Manoach's words after he and his
wife saw a mal'akh, "mos namus, ki E-lokim ra'inu" (Shofetim 13:22)
Also, the seneh starts out with the call of a mal'akh, and turns into
a conversation with HQBH a pasuaq later.

I would like to propose this chiluq between nevu'ah and ruach haqodesh.

The gemara says that how do we know that Megillas Esther was written
beruach haqodesh (be-RhQ)? The tannaim list things the author couldn't
otherwise have known -- "Vayomer Haman belibo" 6:6, Mordechai knowing
Bigson veSeresh's plot 2:22, that not a single Jew took shalal 9:10
or that literally everyone liked Esther 2:15, qiymu veqiblu -- qiymu
lemaalah mah sheqiblu lematah (9:27) or statements about the eternity
of Purim 9:28. (If you find some of these weak, so did Rava.)

IOW, ruach haqodesh is obtaining knowledge. There is nothing there about
a conscious experience of receiving it. Just that the author wrote
megillas Esther, and post facto it's obvious s/he described things s/he
couldn't have otherwise known.

Unlike nevu'ah which also involves an experience in which the person
has a vision, hears a voice, etc....

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A life of reaction is a life of slavery,
micha at aishdas.org        intellectually and spiritually. One must
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            -Rita Mae Brown