[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 08:55:21PM -0500, Meir Shinnar wrote:
: The epistemological issue is that both sources of knowledge - both
: mesora and science/reason - both come from hashem - and are both
: true - and you reject that monistic approach. Yes, when there is
: a contradiction, one has to weigh the evidence - but we are used to
: assessing and deciding between variant positions in the mesorah -
: suggesting an imerfect understanding - and the question is why is
: knowledge obtained by one of hashem's other ways of revelation to us
: not included in this type of debate? ...

I see the epistomological issue differently.

We know we misunderstood something. Either revelation or science. (I
would not call science another way of revelation, that language confuses
the issue.) Or, of course, the theories that grow around revelation,
around the empirical data, or some combination of the two.

The question becomes which do you consider more sure?

I am arguing that your approach gives far too much relative surety to
theories that grew up around empirical data in comparison to our mesorah.
(Again, from the very subjective measure of my own comfort zone.)

I am okay with theories that grow up around both, and thus knowledge
obtained by what you call "one of Hashem's other ways of revelation
to us" IS included in this kind of debate.

But to assume we got the Torah wrong when the Torah itself has no hint
of such... Isn't that as much of an anathema as assuming we got the
science wrong when all the data is solid, confirmed numerous times,
and the resulting theory made predictions that have also been confirmed
numerous times? Why open the mesorah to revision when the mesorah looks
mesoretically sound faster than opening up a scientific theory for
revision even though it seems to be scientifically sound?

It's that which I see as an assymetry that I am uncomfortable with.

...
:> (I repeatedly suggested a generic answer based on the Maharal about
:> the nature of miracles (pardon that turn of phrase) and suggested that
:> according to his formulation, they would leave never evidence behind
:> that could be experienced by anyone who doesn't live with the miraculous.)

: an understanding of much of tanach - that things happened in a
: miraculous realm that left no impact on the general physical world -
: seems far more radical than most allegorical approaches...

But it passed rabbinic peer review for the past 400 years.

: eg, a flood that affected the entire world - but left no traces that
: it actually happened?

Well, given how the Maharal understands nissim, it's not surprising.
See the 2nd haqdamah to Gevuros Hashem.

Cut-n-pasting from one of those repetitions (Mesukim MiDevash for
Beshalach, pp 1-2 <http://www.aishdas.org/mesukim/5764/beshalach.pdf>):

    The Maharal... writes that rather than being an exception to
    the rule, nissim follow their own rules. Indeed, miracles occur
    all the time, but on their own plane of reality. This is why
    Yehoshua requests "shemesh beGiv'on dom -- the sun should stand
    still in Giv'on." (Yehoshua 10:13) The sun stopped for the Jews
    in Giv'on, who were on a plane where miracles operate, but not for
    anyone else. Literally two different realities were simultaneously
    experienced. Not two different perceptions of the same event, but two
    conflicting things were real, depending upon which world one occupied.

    Most of us live within a world in which the laws we call "teva"
    apply. R' Chanina ben Dosa, however, lived in a world where the
    laws of neis applied. In this world, oil and vinegar are equally
    flammable.... Rav Eliyahu Dessler elaborates on this principle [MmE I
    pp 304-312]. Mekubalim speak of four olamos, each of a higher level
    than the previous: asiyah (action), yetzirah (formation), beri'ah
    (creation) and atzilus (emanation)....

    People have two sources of information that they consider
    absolute. The first is their senses -- sight, sound, and so on. The
    second is their self-awareness. The senses bring us information about
    the physical world. Self awareness brings us concepts like truth,
    freedom and oppression. Someone mired in the desires of the senses
    lives in the physical world. He focuses his attention on it, just as
    everyone focuses on that which is important to them. "Every tailor
    notices and looks at the clothing of the people in the street; and
    similarly every shoemaker, shoes..." The man of the senses therefore
    perceives it as more objective and more absolute than the world of
    the self.... This is olam ha'asiyah.

    However, one can rise above that to the olam ha'yetzirah. This
    is not merely another level, but another world with its own laws,
    laws that do not conflict with free will. Those who focus on this
    world have no question that free will exists. To them, it is the
    ideals of this world that are more objective and absolute, and the
    senses, more subjective. Rav Dessler explains that this is how nissim
    can impact one person's senses and not another's. Yetzirah is the
    Maharal's plane of nissim, and as the Maharal noted different people
    will perceive the miraculous differently, or not at all. And so the
    sea split in olam hayetzirah, but not in olam ha'asiyah.

If during the event people have conflicting experiences, is it such a
big chiddush to suggest the same is true after the event? We who don't
rise up to the level of experiencing nissim don't live in a universe
where their evidence exists.

This explanation has the advantage of explaining the lack of physical
evidence while accounting for the presence of cultural testimony to the
flood. The Aztecs, living at altitudes so high they developed larger lung
capacity than most people, didn't remember a flood local to Mesopotamia
or the area just south of the Black Sea. They aren't likely to have any
flood plain stories in their culture.

Cultures from the Australian Aborigines (in the Outback desert) to
the Innuit (in frozen parts of Canada) have flood legends. It's either
testimony to a real event or proof Jung's Archetypal Symbolism. I
don't know which would bother skeptic more.

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 07:11:32PM +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
:> Yes. So the question is which do I assume was misunderstood,
:> the science / philosophy, or the Torah. I'm arguing that if you have
:> to change the Torah ONLY because you need to eliminate the
:> conflict, then to my mind (or should I say "to my gut instinct?") you
:> should instead wait for the science to be ammended.

:> Or, just wait with the question altogether, seeing as we lack the
:> tools to find the single truth.
...

: A different formulation of the problem, which, admittedly, doesn't
: fully answer our question, but nonetheless agrees with your assertion
: that "just wait with the question altogether, seeing as we lack the
: tools to find the single truth," but gives a useful result, is the
: following question:

: Given we cannot arrive at a definite answer in these matters, and
: given that some of us have different gut feelings than others, is it
: heresy to posit one kind of reconciliation or another? To that
: question, I believe that the negative answer will be true in many more
: cases than usually acknowledged.

I don't think anything but denying the iqarim define heresy. The iqarim
are echoed in Hil' Teshuvah in the definitions of minim, apiqursim and
koferim. Yes, not every believer in kefirah is a kofer, and yes, we have
argued in the past whether current following of the iqarim WRT who can
handle wine or who is a candidate for conversion is lifnim mishuras hadin
(or ta'us) or an actual pesaq.

So, we may argue if the iqarim are too restrictive, but I don't think any
of us have room to call someone a heretic if the iqarim are not touched.

My problem is with the surety one gives their scientific conclusions
vs their mesoretic ones. I think there is a weakness of emunah when
one assumes too often that it is the mesorah that must have been
misunderstood, rather than the scientific theory or philosophical
argument.

On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 11:18:39AM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 22/11/2010 10:06 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> There is no mention of Yom haDin, just of Yom Hashem. The notion that
>> would need explanation would be your assumption that they're identical.
>> Or even that Yom haDin was a day -- I would think it's shorter.

> It's Yom Hashem Hagadol Vehanora.  What other day could that mean *but*
> Yom Hadin?  And it needn't take up the whole day, but that is the Day
> of Judgement; it certainly needn't take *more* than a day.

The Yom Shekulo Shabbos -- or is that also only 24 hours?

>> Rashi on 2:1 explicitly says that "kulam nivera'u barishon". Nothing
>> about a given day.

> Come, now.  His comment is on "*beyom* asos Hashem", and he says
> "*limdecha* shekulam nivre'u barishon".  *This teaches you* that
> everything was really created on the first day, not on the subsequent
> five days.  What teaches you this?  The word "beyom"....

In the beginning. Rashi notably doesn't use the word yom.

> Rashi takes this "beyom" absolutely literally.  It does not mean even
> as little as a week, let alone any longer period....

Since Rashi doesn't say anything about yamim, I don't see how you get
this. But in any case, where does Rashi reinterpret the introduction
of this parashah (2:4-3:15) the "toledos shamayim va'aretz behibar'am,
beyom asos H' Elokim shamayim va'aretz" as not telling you the entire
parashah isn't in that barishon, in that day of creation?

Rashi on 1:1 says it's a prepratory step before the week of creation.
"Velo ba hamiqra lehoros seder haberi'ah" and "bereishis hakol bara eilu".

According to what Rashi is saying, the kulam that were created barishon
includes the creation of man, woman and the eating from the eitz hadaas.
What he says this pereq tells you is that it all happened barishon. That
cannot be a 24 hour day if the week described in the previous pereq was
7 such 24 hour days.

This is why I counted Rashi among those who do not say that time
during maaseh bereishis is literal altogether -- not even 7 period of
unspecified length. Because Rashi appears to imply that the sequence is
even malleable. To me, Rashi reads not that differently than the Rambam's
7 causal steps. (Again, counting Shabbos as a nivra.)

See also the Maharal, the other haqdamah to Gevuros Hashem. In his
discussion of Ein Doreshin he says that "arayos" there refers to the
relationships between nivra'im more than literal intimate relationships
between people. And he associates it with this pereq, Bereishis 2.
Does that not sound like Rashi's notion of a single creation followed
by placement?

And doesn't creation vs placement sound similar to -- although different
than -- the Ramban's beri'ah of hyle vs later vayeitzer? In the sense
that both make creation a two step thing?

...
>> In fact, taken very literally, Rashi is saying that
>> everything was created at the start of the week, as he says on 1:14
>> about the me'oros, "they were created since yom 1, and on the 4th [yom]
>> it was commanded on them to hand in the raqia'".

> Exactly.  And how does he know this?  Because of this "beyom", which
> you claim means the whole week!

As above, Rashi says we know it from 1:1. Here, Rashi is saying that we
know everything was created up front (barishonah), in a single yom. That
yom could be of any duration, from all we see in Rashi. But after the
yom of creation -- not week -- everything is nivra and man ate from the
eitz hadaas.

...
> Rashi already handled that one.  The main pshat is that this pasuk is
> about the *purpose* of the whole creation, not its timing; and if that
> doesn't sit well then the secondary pshat is that it means that the
> next pasuk ("vehaaretz haysa tohu vavohu") happened at the beginning of
> the creation of shamayim va'aretz.  Rashi absolutely rejects the idea
> that 1:1 tells us when shamayim va'aretz were created.

Rashi absolutely rejects the idea that any of Miqra tells us when shamayim
va'aretz were nivra'im (to be more specific than "created"). He doesn't
say (on 1:1) "lo ba hapasuq" or "lo ba hamiqra kan". But "lo ba hamiqra".

...
> Sorry, you are distorting the Rashi beyond any recognition.  Rashi
> couldn't be any clearer: "beyom asos" means the first day and only the
> first day, to the specific exclusion of the rest of the yemei bereshis.

You don't address my main point in that post. "Beyom asos" is given
as the time in which Adam is created, names the animals, gets a mate,
eats from the eitz hadaas. "Eileh toledos" and then those are the events
told over. Is that all on day one?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
micha at aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
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