[Avodah] Rav SR Hirsch and the Raavad on Anthropomorphism

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 02:53:21PM -0400, R Zvi Lampel wrote:
> RSRH writes similarly in his Chumash commentary on Breishis, end of 6:6  
...
>        This is also the view of the /Ra'avad/, the distinctively Jewish
> thinker: Belief in the Personality of G-d is more important than the
> speculations of those who reject the attribution of material features to
> G-d.

I think "Personhood" is probably more on target than Personality. At
least, as most people usually use the latter word.

Personhood: that Hashem is Someone, not a "something".

Personality: that the middos we ascribe to HQBH are literally part of
His emotional makeup.

> The view RSRH attributed to the Raavad has also been described as the  
> real point the rishon R' Moshe Taku meant to make (as opposed to an  
> actual belief in Hashem's corporeality, attributed to him by some).

That wasn't the point I took away from the extant pieces of his
Kesav Tamim.

Here's a relevent quote (pp 79-80):

    We cannot compare Him to any image, and we, who are fetid drops,
    cannot think about His nature. When it is His will to show Himself
    to the angels, He shows Himself standing straight, as much as they
    are able to accept. Sometimes He shows them a strange light without
    any form, and they know that the Divine Presence is there. He has
    movement, which can be derived from the fact that His fetid creations
    have movement. He created the air which provides life to the creations
    and created the place of the world.... He furthermore made known to
    them the acts of the chariot and the acts of creation. But without
    the wisdom of the Torah, it is impossible for any person to recognize
    the greatness of the Holy One, blessed is He, through intellect.

And (pg 85):
    A wise person will understand that according to the reasoning and
    intellect of those 'outside' viewpoints that we mentioned above,
    one must deny the statement of the Rabbis (Bereishit Rabba 88) that:
    "'I will be faithful for them' -- for three thousand years before
    the creation of the world God created the Torah and was looking
    in it and learning it." According to their words that there is no
    movement or motion and no speech all the words of the Torah and
    of our Rabbis must be analogies and metaphors. Heaven forbid that
    anyone with a soul within his body should believe in what they say,
    to lessen the honor of our Creator, and to deny the greatness of
    what our Rabbis have told us! They have also written, "Does He sit
    on an exalted and high throne? Originally was it possible for Him
    without a throne and now He need a throne? Furthermore anyone who
    sits on a throne has the throne surrounding him, and we can't say
    such a thing about the Creator, about Whom it says that He fills the
    heavens and the earth." These are [their] words of blasphemy, that He
    doesn't need the throne! They have forgotten... what the Men of the
    Great Assembly established in our prayers, "To God who sits... on
    the seventh day He ascended and sat on His throne of glory..." We
    see that He created the world and sat on the throne of glory, and
    not that He created other forms and sat them on the throne. Such a
    form was never created and these are words of blasphemy.

My take:

The Rambam (Moreh I) argues that HQBH is so Other, so Unique, that we
can't say anything about what He Is. Only about what He Isn't, and what
He does.

RMT's position appears to be that HQBH is so Other, so Unique, that we
cannot make any deductions about Him altogether. Take logtic and reason
off the table. And so, if the Torah says "Yad Hashem", what tools do we
have to argue? It may not make sense to say Hashem has a Guf, but not
fitting human sense is a given. In a way, his point isn't to assert that
Hashem has a body as to attack the notion that we can deny it. We have
to leave the question of G-d's Body unanswered and unanswerable.

Notice there is no more room in [my understanding of] RMT's hashkafah
for a personal relationship with G-d or Divine Immanence, than there is
in the Rambam's. Both deal in purely transcendent terms.

(No comment about the Raavad, because I don't know RSRH's source either.)

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha at aishdas.org        And the Torah, its light.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - based on Mishlei 6:2
Fax: (270) 514-1507