[Avodah] Consumer alert:minhog scams on the rise!

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 02:05:02PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> If the stories of R Chanina ben Dosa and R Pinchas ben Yair didn't happen
> then they *have* no meaning.  There is *no* musar haskeil that can be
> taken from such a story, if it was made up.  How can you prove anything
> from a story you just made up for the purpose of proving your point?

How do you get from "musar haskeil" to "proof"? Sit with the Maharal and
you'll get lessons from R' Chanina ben Dosa's lighting vinegar or his
returning the golden table leg.

TSBP is supposed to be be'al peh. Our need to write down halakhah forced
a shift. However, aggadita doesn't require the same legal precision,
and therefore chazal often put down mnemonic hints of the truths they
wanted to relay rather than commit TSBP to writing.

Thus the heavy use of metaphor in aggadita. Or, as you put it WRT those
stories you agree the Rambam referred to...

On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 at 02:01:45PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>                                                        That, and the
> style of the stories themselves, indicate that we're supposed to take
> them as tall stories that hide a deeper meaning.

My point is just that even the historical stories were only repeated
to rely that deeper meaning. Chazal weren't historians; that was neither
their purpose, nor did the concept exist yet.

Jumping back a bit in that second post, RZS asked:
> On 6/07/2011 1:54 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> However, you repeat what I feel is the wrong half of the Rambam's phrase,
>> yes it's "sheKOL hanimna'os", but the Rambam continues "mechuyavei
>> hametzi'us". What are the "necessities of existence" if not the laws of
>> nature? He doesn't speak of paradoxes and laws of logic...

> How do you know that's not what he means?

Because "mechuyavei hametzi'us" invokes the empirical. The Rambam literally
says he's talking about those things that defy empirical rules, not logical
ones. The Rambam has many idioms for logical impossibilities, and he was
a philosopher who knew the difference between things that must be false
due to paradox and those that happen to contradict reality. E.g. see
Moreh 3:15, where he argues that Omnipotence does not include doing the
paradoxical, even though other violations of nature are included.

Aside from that, the Rambam discusses it at length in Igeres Teiman,
as R Dr Shinnar already quoted. There the Rambam distinguishes based on
"seder tiv'i".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             People were created to be loved.
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