[Avodah] Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise!

Meir Shinnar chidekel at gmail.com
Sun Jun 26 10:00:01 PDT 2011


> Again I come back to the basic question: are
> we Jews or Protestants? Do we believe that there is a Higher World and
> there are miracles or not? What kind of Jew believes such things to be
> impossible?

As RZS does not view the MN as representing the authentic rambam (we
can agree to disagree on this - he does represent a major haredi
streak), look at ma'amar techiyat hametim - where he is explicit that
while we believe that miracles are in principle possible, we try our
best to minimize them to the extent possible - because disruptions in
the natural order reflect a defect in that order - and those that
maximize miracles, rather than increasing kavod hashem, decrease it.
Therefore,  we interprete as much as possible allegorically.  Yes,
some things, such as tehiyat hametim (the focus of the article -as the
rambam was accused of not believing in it)  are supported by
sufficient evidence that we believe in them - but that evidence has to
be quite strong.

A statement in the or zarua about an event at the time of hazal -
butnot found in early sources  by this quite explicit approach, would
be quite automatically viewed , even if viewed as historically
reliable (WADR to the Ohr zarua, doubts about historical reliablity of
such stories is legitimate) , as reflecting more a sense that the
authors viewed the tefilla as inspired by ruach hakodesh - rather than
a literal story.

RZS comes from the strand that the rambam denigrates - who would
maximize miracles.  He has al mi lismoch - but to call those who
follow the rambam Protestants is something that requires a mecha'a

Meir Shinnar




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