[Avodah] Why Not: Yehoshua BEN Nun?

[Zev Sero]

On 15/06/2012 3:01 PM, hankman wrote:
> I knew you would respond with this generality which is why I asked
> you to be specific and to tell us how you know that MR didn't have
> this revealed to him. So once again, please restrict your answer to one
> specific nevuah in Nach that is mechadesh Torah secrets to which MR was
> not privy and how you know that is the case.

Just open a Tanach. I see no reason to believe that MR knew anything
you will read there. Of course it's *possible*, anything is possible,
but I don't see any reason why it would be so. MR was taught many Torah
secrets, but not necessarily everything. He was taught the midot through
which all future chidushei torah can be derived, so *in principle* all
of R Akiva's chidushim were contained in what he was taught, even if he
didn't realise it; but nevi'im don't derive things through the midot,
so what Yeshaya or Yechezkel was told wasn't even potentially derivable
by Moshe. And certainly a system of using certain arrangements of dots to
represent certain vowel sounds, *even if* they were revealed from Above,
wouldn't have been told to him; if it had been, why wouldn't he teach it
to Yehoshua and have it passed down? Of course it's possible that he did
and it was forgotten and then subsequently re-revealed to the Tiberians
(through Eliyahu or some other non-nevuah method), but there's no basis
for such a supposition.


On 15/06/2012 3:21 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 02:32:39PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Well, all of Nach.  And every nevuah that didn't make it into Nach
>> because it had no lesson for klal yisrael.  None of them were known
>> before they were given.  So they're all new.  But none of them change
>> the halacha.

> I thought Lurianic Qabbalah are thoughts the Ari learned from Eliyahu
> hanavi in a small house near the Nile. Eliyahu never dies, and even after
> translation is still considered alive enough to qualify for reviving
> semichah, and for teaching halakhah -- lo baShamayim hi. Lo kol shekein
> for teaching aggadita.

Yes, but RCM's question was about nevi'im.

As far as Eliyahu is concerned, he can teach forgotten halachot that he
remembers from earthly rabbonim and poskim, or he can give a posek the
information which would lead him to pasken a new way, but he can't just
say "this is how Hashem wants things done, this is the new halacha".

And what of Achiyah Hashiloni, who taught the Baal Shem Tov?  He was
certainly dead.   Some of what he taught may have been what he remembered
learning in his lifetime, but most of it would surely have been what he
learned in Yeshivah Shel Maalah.  That is certainly Bashamayim, and thus
he could not have taught anything that changed halacha.


> I have bigger problems with the Torah the Ramchal ascribes to maggidim.
>
> The mechabeir less so. I'm convinced he sets out to pasqen following
> the majority of his triumverate in part to exclude the maggid's Torah
> from his results.

Because it's halacha.


> The question I have is more about the possibility of receipt of new
> information after the end of nevu'ah, not the quality or Torah-ness of
> that information. The entire concept of speaking to maggidim. Even what we
> call Ruach haqodesh since the nevi'im is more bas qol. (Tosafta Sotah
> 13:2, Sanhedrin 11a) So how do we have these speaking to mal'akhim,
> the embodiments of ideas or sefarim, and so on?

Nevu'ah is not just about receiving information.  It's a brush with
Hashem.  There is always (except for MR) a "mal'ach hadover bi" whose
function is to help the Navi *interpret* the experience, but it is not
part of the experience, and that can happen even today.  For instance
Manoach and his wife were not nevi'im, but they did get information
from a mal'ach.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name