[Avodah] How game theory solved a religious mystery

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 11:13:18AM -0400, I wrote:
: I must confess I personally feel an estrangement from shitas haRambam
: for this reason.

I am kind of disappointed no one yet has tried to reconcile me...

: The Rambam treats halakhah as a science not a legal system...
: And so, the Rambam can not have a concept of multiple correct
: interpretations, since Aristo is so black-and-white in his logic, with
: no grays.
: 
: Also, Aristo is a source the Rambam invokes when associating redemption
: with acquisition of Truth. And so Torah must be to him a search for
: Truth, not a search for a redemptive path -- where redemption includes,
: but isn't defined as Truth.
...

Well, I came across an example that shows the above is an
oversimplification.

How many lines of text were / will be on the tzitz?

In a beraisa quoted in Shabbos 63b and Sukkah 5a, the stam beraisa
says it had two rows -- Hashem's name, and below it, "Qodesh La-".
R' Eliezer then says that he saw the tzitz in Rome, and it had Qodesh
Lashem written out in one row.

The Rambam, Hil' Kelei haMiqdash 9:1, holds like the stam beraisa.

However, the Meiri preserves my basic picture of the Rambam. He writes
that the stam beraisa is more reliable than the evidence of a tzitz found
in Rome.

It could be that this particular tzitz was made in a bedi'eved or inferior
way, or even an imitation designed to let the Romans think they had the
tzitz while the sacred one was hidden away.

But the Rambam DOES deal with existing halakhah as though it were mining
facts, that interpreting laws.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are where your thoughts are.
micha at aishdas.org                - Ramban, Igeres Hakodesh, Ch. 5
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