[Avodah] [Areivim] On Hirsch's 19 Letters and a controversy about the meaning of it's Hebrew...

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 03:41:47PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote to Areivim:
> The fact is that in letter eighteen of the Nineteen letters,  RSRH has 
> strong criticism for the RAMBAM, because he employed non-Jewish sources.  

I think the problem is more specific than "employing non-Jewish sources".
That would mean that RSRH would have something against using Kant or Schiller
to explain something in the Torah.

It was reconciliation in particular and "entering Judaism from without".
It is one thing to use other knowledge to aid one's understanding of
Torah. It's quite another to take most elements of Aristo's philosophy
as so compelling that it qualifies as sevara, and one's understanding
of the mesorah is fitted into Artisto's terms and framework.

I've also commented here in the past about the Rambam's notion that man's
telos is defined by yedi'ah, and how this idea appears to be more Greek
than mesoretic.

To repeat R Prof YL's quote:
> The following is from Rabbi Dr. Bernard Drachman's English translation
> of the Nineteen letters pages 181 - 184 that is available for download
> from google books at no charge at http://tinyurl.com/3lb83b2

> The age gave birth to a man, (Drachman inserts a footnote that says
> "Maimonides") a mind, who, the product of uncomprehended Judaism and
> Arabic science, was obliged to reconcile the strife which raged in his
> own breast in his own manner, and who, by proclaiming it to the world,
> became the guide of all in whom the same conflict existed. This great
> man, to whom, and to whom alone, we owe the preservation of practical
> Judaism to our time, is responsible, because he sought to reconcile
> Judaism with the difficulties which confronted it from without, instead
> of developing it creatively from within, for all the good and the evil
> which bless and afflict: the heritage of the father. His peculiar mental
> tendency was Arabic-Greek, and his conception of the purpose of life the
> same. He entered into Judaism from without, bringing with him opinions
> of whose truth he had convinced himself from extraneous sources and
> he reconciled. For him, too, self-perfecting through the knowledge of
> truth was the highest aim, the practical he deemed subordinate. For
> him knowledge of God was the end, not the means; hence he devoted his
> intellectual powers to speculations upon the essence of Deity, and sought
> to bind Judaism to the results of his speculative investigations as
> to postulates of science or faith. The Mizvoth became for him merely
> ladders, necessary only to conduct to knowledge or to protect against
> error, this latter often only the temporary and limited error of
> polytheism. Mishpatim became only rules of prudence, Mitzvoth as well;
> Chukkim rules of health, teaching right feeling, defending against the
> transitory errors of the time; Edoth ordinances, designed to promote
> philosophical or other concepts; all this having no foundation in the
> eternal essence of things, not resulting from their eternal demand on
> me, or from my eternal purpose and task, no eternal symbolizing of an
> unchangeable idea, and not inclusive enough to form a basis for the
> totality of the commandments.

> He, the great systematic orderer of the practical results of the
> Talmud, gives expression in the last part of his philosophic work to
> opinions concerning the meaning and purpose of the commandments which,
> taking the very practical results codified by himself as the contents
> of the commandments, are utterly untenable - cast no real light upon
> them, and cannot go hand in hand with them in practice, in life,
> and in science. These are the views which have been inherited up to
> the present day by those who care at all to understand the spirit of
> the Mitzvoth. But since the precepts, as practically fulfilled, stand
> entirely out of connection with these explanations, it was inevitable
> that their ceremonial fulfillment lost its spiritual basis, and became
> despised. You see, instead of taking one's stand within Judaism, and
> asking, "Inasmuch as Judaism makes these demands of me, what opinion of
> the purpose of man must it have?" instead of comprehending each demand
> in its totality according to Bible and Talmud, and then asking, "What is
> the reason and idea of this injunction?" people set up their standpoints
> outside of Judaism, and sought to draw it over to them; they conceived
> a priori opinions as to what the Mitzvoth might be, without disturbing
> themselves as to the real appearance of the Mitzvoth in all its parts.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
micha at aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham