[Avodah] Hilchos Kaddish

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 02:46:21PM +0000, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: [I know we can see this passage as not literal and as an asmachta of
: sorts, but I'd rather not go there now :-)]

Personally, I thought that gematria is part of the remez quarter of the
PaRDe"S schema. And, translating it literally, I would think remez means
"mnemonic", very much an "asmachta of sorts".

IOW, I would suggest that gematrios are memory aids. However, their
post-facto status doesn't belittle them. An entire quarter (if it were
developed to the same extent as the other three) of the mesorah exists
"just" to help us enrich and internalize ideas that are actually derived
in other ways.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha at aishdas.org        And the Torah, its light.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - based on Mishlei 6:2
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