[Avodah] Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, hashgacha pratit, and free will

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Thu, 2010-07-29 at 16:01 -0400, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 12:00:04AM -0500, Chanoch (Ken) Bloom wrote:
> :> The problem you hit WRT the amendation to Chullin 7b "No one bruises
> :> (or even lifts) a finger down below unless a proclamation is issued from
> :> above" is one I hit chasing a few of RIS's quotes.
> 
> : After looking more extensively into the hebrew word used here "nogef",
> : it seems that the best English translation of this is "strike" (rather
> : than "bruise") which suggests two possible modes of injury. In one mode,
> : an object moves to be in the path of the finger, and the finger hits it.
> : This one clearly comes from Hashem...
> 
> Unless you follow the Rambam, and the person's yedi'ah is insufficient
> to get such levels of HP (hashgachah peratis). But since I don't know
> too many people today who hold like the Rambam on this, I would
> agree. (Just not use the word "clearly".)

Remember, I'm trying to backread Bilvavi's position into the gemara, and
I'm ignoring the Kuzari and Rambam who apparently disagree (and whom
Bilvavi doesn't quote).

> :                                     In the other, it seems that the
> : person is careless and strikes his finger becuase he wasn't paying
> : attention to where it was going. Can we say this is truly under the
> : person's control? If we are to take the Gemara to its logical extreme,
> : perhaps we must say that Hashem takes over and decides where his finger
> : should go when he isn't moving it intentionally.
> 
> This touches on R' Dessler's position that only decisions that require
> a conscious battle are included in bechirah chafshi. Thus, unconscious
> decisions about where one's finger is aren't part of bechirah.

I had understood R' Dessler as placing events involving a person into 3
categories:
      * Bechira
      * Acclimation (which would seem to cover just about anything a
        person's body does that doesn't meet R' Dessler's threshold for
        Bechira.)
      * Hashgacha (things that come from outside the person's body).
I guess I'll have to work on that more.

> To get back to my problem... None of this is actually muchrach from
> the gemara, and we're backreading the position we're associating with
> the Bilvavi back into shas. That's still not what the sefer itself is
> doing -- using the gemara as a proof for the position as though the
> gemara itself were incontravertably saying what he was.

Yes, I admit that I'm backreading (what seems to be) Bilvavi's position
back into the gemara. But AIUI, that's not such an uncommon way to learn
a gemara when you're trying to figure out how a particular rishon or
acharon understands it.

> : Look one chapter earlier, to the Ramchal's introduction, and you will
> : see that lists deveikut as part of a list of other goals that we are
> : able to accomplish in our lifetime.
> 
> And in this paragraph that you quoted "nishtadel lidvoq bo". But that's
> saying that part of a program of sheleimus is trying to cleave to the
> A-lmighty. Not that "all we have in this world" is such closeness. Just
> your words "as part of a list of other goals" is enough to contradict
> the Bilvavi's interpretation.
> 
> Which is why I am not clear on the reason for your whole detour into
> exactly what deveiqus means. It's not so much what is deveiqus as
> much as whether he sees this life's goal in terms of wholeness or
> in terms of closeness (keeping that vague) to Hashem.
> 
> If in a situation where you're forced to choose between davening bekavanah
> or davening earlier but before you have the yishuv hadaas for kavanah,
> would the Ramchal choose connecting to the Almighty, or developing the
> middah of zerizus? We saw this become a pragmatic difference between
> chassidim and misnagdim.
> 
> The Bilvavi portrays the MY as one who would tell you to go for the
> kavanah. The MY himself doesn't look like that to me.

You raise an interesting question here, but it's not the same question
as you asked in your previous message which was  "how can Bilvavi base
himself on MY and say one should strive for deveikut when MY says
deveikut is something that can only be achieved in Olam haBa?" My detour
into what deveikut means is to clarify that the MY says deveikut is
something that can be achieved in Olah haZeh.

But your questions now are worthwhile, specifically:
      * How can Bilvavi say that deveikut is our only goal in Olam
        haZeh, when the Ramchal lists a whole bunch of other things that
        we must work to achieve?
      * If we take it for granted that Bilvavi and MY agree that
        deveikut is our only goal in Olam haZeh, then what does Bilvavi
        find lacking in MY's derech that he has to propose his own
        derech (and present it specifically as the ikkar) to accomplish
        that goal?

(Certainly, however, the use of the techniques Bilvavi describes is not
contradicted by MY, nor by Derech Hashem, since they all agree that
Ahavat Hashem and Yirat Hashem are appropriate goals as part of their
program.)