[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 06:36:44PM +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
: The only issue I have with the above is that the four kabbalistic worlds
: are not actual places where one can live a physical life in...
: Of course, it is possible that the Maharal introduces the four realms
: paradigm to explain his understanding of nissim. If so, could someone
: explain to me how the Maharal squares the two notions?

The Maharal doesn't map this concept to the olamos, R' Dessler does.

My only follow up comment is to see the 2nd haqdamah to Gevuros
Hashem yourself, as well as MmE I pp 304-312. (As I suggested in my
prior post.) We're talking about
a self-contradictory reality -- I wouldn't trust my own attempts to
reason about such things. And certainly wouldn't try to ascribe those
conclusions to the Maharal or to REED.

...
: * Did only people who live in the realm of the miraculous nature, die
: in the Flood? If not, how did the others die, from the Flood, or they
: just died? How did they experience the Flood, if they weren't on such
: a high spiritual level?

This is also a problem with maqas dam -- it's the lowly who experienced
the change in nature, not the lofty. Again, I ask you to see inside for
yourself. My best guess, just sharing since I've been thinking about the
topic longer than you have, is that it's possible for someone to be so
sinful that their perceptions still perceive reality on the moral rather
than physical plane -- but from the evil side.

: * Should we be allowed to expect some, rare but extant, first person
: accounts of people who have experienced the realm of nes, and who can
: give us scientific accounts of those worlds?

Nissim are very rare. And I don't think anyone lived within the realm of
neis long enough to do a study. As for scientific accounts -- we know
the laws in this realm, they are the moral laws inherent in the Torah.
Again, see REED -- the olam of nissim is olam hayetzirah which is a
world where justice and freedom are the absolute laws rather than the
laws of nature being absolute.

...
: Would it not be a better explanation to say that the realm of miracle
: is a different realm of consciousness, but that realms of consciousness
: are real, no less real than the physical world?

That pretty much is exactly REED's position. With the added caveat that
olamos are realms of consciousness.

It's very Kantian -- the olamos are phenomenological worlds, and
therefore are constructs of the human condition. As I find REED
to be in general. Such as "Zeman vehHishtalshlus" in MmE IV pp
113, where he writes about the nature of time, and how much of
it doesn't apply to the pre-Adam universe. IN fact, since we're
discussing yom, here is RSCoffer's translation (minus his bracketed
inserts, which I feel are not in line with the REED's intent) from
<http://www.toriah.org/people/R-Dessler/Vol4-pages-p113.pdf>:

    Time -- its existence is only within our perception. Creation is
    far more profound than our ability to grasp and far greater than
    that which is represented in our physical universe. Consequently,
    "creation" transcends any limitations of time. The concept of
    something being "beyond the limitations of time" cannot be fully
    grasped by the human intellect. Thus when considering "beyond the
    limitations of time", it is projected into our minds as endless
    periods of time. And thus it seems to scientists as if the world
    evolved over millions of years.Question: If so, why then does the
    Torah establish the description of creation in terms of six days? The
    Torah wanted to teach us that the existence of all things is only
    in proportion to the spiritual content it possesses. Something that
    contains much materialism and little spirituality -- its value
    and true existence is small because the existence of everything
    [is determined solely] according to the measure of its spiritual
    content. (And this is the meaning of the verse "[for] a thousand
    years in your eyes are as yesterday which passed..." The smallest
    component of time to us would be the "passing", in our memories,
    of the experiences of one day in the past, and thus the terminology
    "which passed".)

    And according to what we have mentioned, the fact that the universe
    appears to scientists to be millions of years old, the reason is that
    every object which is empirically observable to us on a superficial
    level, actually alludes, on a more profound level, to a deeper more
    qualitative aspect, that is, an aspect relating to the fundamental
    nature of creation and its spiritual purpose. Thus, what appears as
    differentiated stages in the chain of superficial cause and effect
    processes, is essentially nothing but spiritual aspects and levels
    in the fundamental nature of creation, except that it seems like
    this to one with a materialistic perspective, the entire cause and
    effect experience is simply a superficial shell which encompasses
    these fundamental and essential aspects of creation.

BTW, REED's understanding is much like that of Ernst Mach, the physicist
philosopher after whom the speed of sound is named. Einstein also
subscribed to his friend Mach's explanation, at least for some period in
his life. (I find Einstein's quotes inconsistent). From "The Economical
Nature of Physical Inquiry", exerpted by J. Kockelmans. Philosophy of
science: the historical background. New York: The Free Press, 1968:

    The goal which [science] has set itself is the simplest and most
    economical abstract expression of facts.

    When the human mind, with its limited powers, attempts to mirror
    in itself the rich life of the world, of which it itself is only
    a small part, and which it can never hope to exhaust, it has every
    reason for proceeding economically.

    In reality, the law always contains less than the fact itself,
    because it does not reproduce the fact as a whole but only in that
    aspect of it which is important for us, the rest being intentionally
    or from necessity omitted.

    In mentally separating a body from the changeable environment in which
    it moves, what we really do is to extricate a group of sensations on
    which our thoughts are fastened and which is of relatively greater
    stability than the others, from the stream of all our sensations.

    Suppose we were to attribute to nature the property of producing
    like effects in like circumstances; just these like circumstances we
    should not know how to find. Nature exists once only. Our schematic
    mental imitation alone produces like events.

Einstein famously said in a number of variations that the most
incomprehensible thing about the universe is its comprehensibility. At
least, to people who can follow the math. But the fact that the universe,
in scales we don't need to survive, can be described in languages we
invent is itself pretty amazing. An answer he suggests once is that this
is because the same mind we bring to our perceptions is the one we use
to explain those perceptions.

While veering off into the subject of Kant and phenomena
(the world as peceived)... R' Kook has an interesting shitah
about the sefirah of Malkhus. See
<http://vbm-torah.org/archive/igrot/10igrot.htm>. (Malkhus is
created by the perceiver. That's how one world's Malkhus is the next
world down's Keser. It is thus compared to the moon, which has nothing
of itself, only reflected light. And thus the Shechinah, man's perception
of HQBH, is Malkhus.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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