[Avodah] torah and mada conference

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 03, 2012 at 01:11:02PM +0300, Eli Turkel wrote:
: Moshe Koppel spoke about his work on finding authors of books - was tested
: first on known works
...
: 6. Dividing the torah into 2 parts yieldedstandard academic  Priest vs
: non-Priest diivision except for the first perek of Beresshit
:     dividing into 3 parts gave Devarim as a a separate author
:     dividing into 4 parts gave no known division

IOW, all they proved was that had the Torah been written by two authors,
that's where it would split. Which is unsurprising, the academics
weren't being arbitrary. Also RMK told me that a certain percentage of
the split between P and E+J is simply due to narrative vs law. It's only
the exceptions to the rule (stories assigned to P and laws assigned to
E or J) that are interesting.

: problems with the method - one needs to specify in advance how many authors
: R. Breuer would explain that G-d speaks in several voices

Why do you need to invoke RMBreuer? Chazal already said the same about
stories that use sheim Havayah vs those that use sheim E-lokus. And that
Devarim is HQBH's version of Moshe Rabbeinu's last teachings, and thus
of a different voice.

I suggested to RMK the reverse experiment -- do the sefarim assigned
to Shemuel or to Ezra or peraqim of Tehillim attibuted to David haMelekh
resemble eachother more than not? When you try to split them, do you
get anything meaningful, or does it end up pretty arbitrary?

...
: Four challenges of Mada to Torah in order of difficulty
...
: 4. Free will, is rain deterministic- prayers for lack of rain and thanks
: for appropriate rain, beracha on eclipse, prayer in general

I don't know how mada touches any of these. IOW, what's the problem to
address?

...
: 2. Re-interpret the Torah - This was the approach of Rambam.

It frustrates me when people say this. The Rambam holds that the two
cannot contradict, that we would never have to REinterpret the Torah. He
instead picks maamarei Chazal, often ones we don't normally see, but
existing interpretations.

:     A modern attempt - murderer has no free will he is punished to save
: society not a  punishment

Again, I don't understand your #4. Who says murderers have no free will?
Or are we talking about punishing a shoteh or a tinoq shenishba?

: Prof. Koslovsky of head of  Psychology at Bar Ilan
: 
: New area of psychology is the impact of brain research -
: effect of drugs on free will
: difference between "mind" and the brain - do actions start with the mind
: telling the brain or does the brain tell the mind what it is doing

Or is the relationship something other than causal? Maybe two different
consequences of the same phenomenon? IOW, the soul is a "beam" of "Or" --
the slice at the "plane" of olam hayetzirah is what we call mind, and the
"slice" at olam ha'asiyah is brain. Now the soul "changes shape". Did the
mind cause a change in the brain, or a brain cause a change in the mind?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For those with faith there are no questions.
micha at aishdas.org        For those who lack faith there are no answers.
http://www.aishdas.org                     - Rav Yaakov of Radzimin
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