[Avodah] Humanoids, Who Cares? What Difference Does it Make?

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Meir Rabi <meirabi at gmail.com>
Subject: [Avodah]  Humanoids, Who Cares? What Difference Does it Make?
Probably  not Talmud Torah.


>>The new book Echoes of Eden by Rabbi Ari Kahn .... that Adam  Harishon
>>co-existed with non-human humanoids. This says Rabbi   Moshe Eisemann, is 
the
>>position of the  Ramban.

Who  Cares?
What Difference Does it Make?
Angels dancing on the head of a  pin.
Must I accept/believe these positions?

Why does anyone bother  with these types of inquiries?
Is it Talmud Torah? and I don't accept that  the Ramban's including it (if 
he
did indeed include it) as a comment proves  that it is TT.

Best,

Meir G. Rabi

 
>>>>>
 
Certainly you are not required to accept or believe these positions!   And 
what doesn't interest you -- you should not waste your time with.  I  think 
it says in the Gemara somewhere that a person should study those aspects  of 
Torah that appeal to him.
 
However, you are making a couple of dubious assumptions here.  
 
Dubious Assumption #1: that if some area of study is not "Talmud  Torah" it 
is of no use and of no interest and should not be studied.  Yet  there are 
many pesukim that could be quoted to indicate that the study of the  world, 
of nature, is or can be part of Talmud Torah.  Maybe the most famous  is 
Yeshayahu 40:26, "Lift up your eyes and see, who created these?"   Another 
would be Tehillim, "Mah gadlu ma'asecha Hashem."  There is a huge  difference in 
depth and appreciation between a child's knowledge that "the world  is 
amazing" and a scientist's knowledge of the same.  The more you know,  the 
higher and deeper is your awareness of "mah gadlu ma'asecha."
 
Now you may argue that this does not apply to those things of which we  
cannot have certain knowledge -- what happened before the world was created, 
for  example -- but in principle, the attempt to study what happened in the 
distant  past is not different in principle from the attempt to study the vast 
distances  in the universe that we can "lift up our eyes and see" each 
night, but will  never be able to traverse.
 
You may also argue that a child's awareness -- "There sure are a lot of  
stars and they sure are pretty" -- is all that Yeshayahu or Dovid Hamelech had 
 in mind.  I would disagree with that position but it is not an 
unreasonable  position.
 
But then there is your dubious assumption #2:  that just because the  
Ramban wrote something in his commentary on the Torah, does not prove that what  
he wrote is Talmud Torah.
 
This becomes a sticky wicket indeed -- if you hold that what is not Talmud  
Torah should not be studied, and also that whatever the Ramban wrote is not 
 necessarily TT -- because you would have to wade through a LOT of 
meforshim  all over the margins of your Chumash and Gemara, penciling out all of the 
things  that are "not Talmud Torah" so that you don't waste your  
Torah-learning time accidentally studying  that-which-should-not-be-studied.  You 
might begin, if you like, by  crossing out all the French words in Rashi.  As 
for Abarbanel, Hirsch and  Malbim, I'd skip them entirely if I were you.
 

--Toby  Katz
================




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