[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Meir Shinnar]

>Me
> : No, the language is deliberate to clarify the issue - because the
> : issue is how much credit do we ascribe to knowledge obtained by other
> : means - and realizing hashem reveals himself in different ways.

RMB
> The problem I have is that "revelation" (to my mind) refers to the
> spectrum of bas qol, ruach haqodesh, nevu'ah, MRAH's nevu'ah...
> that which we refer to as the unique national *revelation* at Har Sinai.

ibn ezra lo nitna hatorah la'asher en da'at bo, vehamalach ben ha'adam
velokav hu sichlo..
It's also related to the rambam's shitta that studying physics and
metaphysics is talmud torah..

>    "'Chokhmah bagoyim' -- taamin,
>    'Torah bagoyim' -- al taamin."

> There is an epistomological difference between that we know through
> Inspired Sources and which we know through science. Yes, they have much
> in common -- both tell us about the Borei. But they aren't fully in
> common. It's not that chokhmah and Torah are really the same thing; not
> if we're talking "which are we more sure of?" questions. They shouldn't
> just be blurred into one under any label for this kind of conversation.

They do have a difference - but one has to be sure what is the
difference.  One argument is a la yeshayahu leibowitz - that
revelation (in your sense..) is primarily in the connative sphere -
while the other is in the cognitive sphere...(some of RYBS's
understandings of the limitations of science point in a similar
direction).  Not that mesora has no cognitive content - clearly it
does - but that its primary focus is connative - and its cognitive
content is frequently phrased in veiled terms..

> :> The question becomes which do you consider more sure?

> "Gives credibility" yes. I didn't say all-or-nothing statements. I said
> "gives far too much relative surety". And our limitations are in common
> whether speaking of chokhmah or Torah, so there is no reason to think
> error is more likely to be in one area than the other on that account.

> I presume you accept anything in the scientific domain that is well
> supported and doesn't raise experimental problems. That, for you, is
> sufficient proof for accepting a scientific theory. You wouldn't reject
> it because it doesn't fit mesorah, for example.

but it DOES FIT mesora - because mesora contains within it the
understandign that our understanding is limited.

> So, if something in mesorah is well supported within TSBP and doesn't
> raise problems internal to Torah, why not afford it the same credibility?
> Why does science stand in the face of a conflict with mesorah, as long
> as it's sound on scientific grounds, but TSBP doesn't stand in the face
> of a conflict with science, as long as it's sound on mesoretic grounds?

because mesora itself doesn't agree with you....

> That is the lopsidedness toward giving more credance to science that I
> see in your position.

> :> 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...

> : Here is where we differ - because my argument is that the torah
> : itself, by giving credibility to other evidence and reason, and by
> : informing us of the fallibility of our understanding, gives us more
> : than a hint that such changes are possible.  It is this refusal to see
> : what is immanent in the torah that is a problem ...

> Yes, such changes are possible. But I would expect to find flaws in
> the mistaken understanding of the Torah that wouldn't work qua Torah.

Why?? it is this limited uinderstanding of torah that reflects, IMHO,
a lack of emunah

> Either that, or one must accept that Torah is incomplete, less than
> temimah. So, shemesh begiv'on dam can change from its old meaning --
> I'm just demanding a higher threshold for doing so.

higher threshold in terms of scientific acceptability - fine
remember the rambam is explicit (ma'amar techiyat hametim)that the
reason that he can allegorize is not that there is a specific mesora
about this  item - but that there is a general mesora that one can do
so..

> ...
> :> 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.

> : The maharal's theory of nissim works fine as applied to individual nissim
> : - but certain parts of the torah are, by pshat, meant to be very public
> : events that had an impact on the outside world rather than private events
> : - eg, the flood. Interepreting them as private events is one that has
> : the same problem that you suggest initially - it is driven by "external"
> : evidence rather than internal.

> I suggest you learn the Maharal. You are assuming a consistency to reality
> that the Maharal is saying fails for miracles. Not internal/subjective
> vs external/objective. But conflicting realities. If even within physics,
> different frames of reference can have conflicting descriptions of reality
> (Was the train ever entirely inside the tunnel?), why can't metaphysics
> assert the same thing on a grander and more fundamental scale?

I have actually learned the maharal a long time ago.  However, we are
not dealing with those directly experiencing the nissim - but their
aftermath. Eg, for the flood - when it says vayimach et kol hayekum -
did that just happen in the perception/sphere/? of the people at that
time, or did it actually happen?

In the end, the difference between your version of the maharal
approach (it happened but not in our physical world) or allegorical
approach is actually quite small..

> : Therefore, whether one tries to reconcile that "external" evidence by
> : i) allegory
> : ii) theory of nissim as private events
> : iii) theory that events occured as a prophetic revelation, rather than
> : in the external world (as in one previous go round)
> : iv) flood was local

> v) I have no way yet to reconcile the data. The data is too compelling
> to let go, but still appears to conflict. Good enough for the conflicts
> between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. Heck, we use QM to design chips
> which compute relativistic effects of the GPS sattelite in order to correct
> for it and no my location. And yet the two conflict fundamentally when you try
> to model gravity.

> Why not accept all the data as compelling and postpone the answer?

There is a difference between saying we have a conflict between our
understanding of the torah and science - and postponing resolution -
as you are proposing here - and sayign that therefore our
understanding of torah is correct, and science must be wrong - as you
said earlier.

> Actually, this isn't true of (ii), since the Maharal proves his point that
> this is how nissim work from things like the medrash about makas dam,
> "shemesh beGiv'on dam" (and only in Giv'on) and other cases. Which is
> why I proposed the possibility. He gives mesoretic basis to a theory
> of miracle which -- with no appeal to anything but what I called above
> "Torah" (in cotrast to "chokhmah") -- would imply something about
> the mabul.

Again, all the examples that he gives reflect nissim whose primary
impact was on those experiencing them (BTW midrashic undestandings of
the global impact of shemesh begivon dom is rejected here.). Who is
the person experiencing the flood as a nes?
(again, I don't have a problem using the maharal to reconcile - just
pointing out that the driving force to use this mode comes from what
you view as external to the mesora - and the difference between this
and the other approaches is not that great..

Meir Shinnar