[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Zev Sero]

On 1/12/2010 1:17 PM, Arie Folger wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 7:01 PM, Zev Sero<zev at sero.name>  wrote:
>> Yes.  But he gives his reason, and it is *not*, as you claim, that the
>> shamayim were created on the second day.  He gives his reason explicitly;
>> why do you feel the need to invent a completely different reason out of
>> whole cloth, especially one that's much simpler than the one he gives,
>> and therefore that he must have considered and rejected?
>
> Both are equivalent. The point is, in 1:1, Rashi tells you it is
> incongruous to posit that heaven and earth were created on the first
> day.

No, no, no, no, no!   He does *not* say that.  They are *not*
"equivalent" at all, they are direct opposites.  He goes out of his
way *not* to say what you attribute to him, *because he does not*
*believe it*.  Tell me, how could he have been more explicit about
what he's saying?  How could he have been more blatant than he is,
that the sky and the earth *were indeed* created on the first day?
What could he have written differently, that would have got you to
agree to read it that way?


> Later, he develops an alternate explanation, which is also
> implicitly a response to his objections in 1:1.

*WHY* do you insist on such a peculiar reading, when Rashi has been
absolutely consistent from the very beginning, and has been saying
this very thing all along?  What forces you to go crooked when the
straight path is right there, unblocked?   When Rashi wants us not
to read the first pasuk as it seems to read, he tells us why.  Now
you tell us why you don't want to read Rashi as it seems to read?


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher