[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 10:38:34AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> The problem with taking "yom" non-literally is not that it doesn't fit
> the words, but that it undermines the basis for Shabbos.  If Hashem
> worked for six aeons and then rested on the seventh, why can't I say
> I'll work for six decades and then rest for the seventh?

A couple of tangential points first:

1- "Yom" literally means era as much as it literally means day. In
that sense, it's much like "eretz" meaning both the earth and specific
countries, and deciding that until now we assumed the wrong translation.
This isn't about deciding something is an allegory, but correcting
a translation.

OTOH, the Rambam's take that it's 6 causal steps, not days, eras, or any
temporal sequence at all, and thus non-literalness would be involved.
However, defences of a one week creation has to

2- Most rishonim who believe in an old universe do so by believing in
time between yeish mei'ayin and day one of the week. Not by translating
"yom" otherwise or saying the week is allegory.

I presume that the Rambam, Abarbanel, Ralbag, the Sheim Tov, the Aqeidas
Yitzchaq et al had an answer to RZS's question. However, I can only
guess at what it could be.

Halakhah mandates a commemoration using a 7 day period. Perhaps for
the same reason that the Author of Hebrew saw day and era as similar
enough to be describable by the same word. If the word "yom" captures
the concept well enough to be used in the pasuq, why wouldn't an actual
day do so well enough to be used in the halakhah?

But the commemoration (zeikher lemaaseh bereishis) needn't match the thing
being remembered more closely than that. Shabbos is a zekher leyetzi'as
Mitzrayim too -- and that didn't take a week nor even described in the
Torah as being a 7 step process. Sukkos must have sekhakh that isn't
mechubar leqarqa and can't receive tum'ah. Was that necessarily true
of the sukkos in the midbar? Especially if we follow the SA think of R'
Eliezer's ananei hakavod when sitting in the sukkah.

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 09:50:38PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> In a place where there were no people, what purpose could a flood serve?

How is this a question? You know Hashem's purposes for everything that
happens, and if you can't find one you assume it didn't happen?

RMMS says something similar in his essay on the age of the universe:
    As for the question, if it be true as above (b), why did God have
    to create fossiles in the first place? The answer is simple: We
    cannot know the reason why God chose this manner of creation in
    preference to another, and whatever theory of creation is accepted,
    the question will always remain unanswered. The question, Why create
    a fossil? is no more valid than the question, Why create an atom?
			- A letter on Science and Judaism, RMMS
			  Challenge, pg 147
Available at
<http://books.google.com/books?id=5fMBnHUiwukC&lpg=PA147&pg=PA147#v=onepage>

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you won't be better tomorrow
micha at aishdas.org        than you were today,
http://www.aishdas.org   then what need do you have for tomorrow?
Fax: (270) 514-1507              - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov