[Avodah] What do we believe about the Kesuvim?

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sun Dec 6 12:22:44 PST 2015


I feel that this conversation strikes me very like a group of blind people
arguing about the difference between red and maroon. Quite literally:

1- We are trying to contrast first-hand experiences that any of us
who are neither nevi'im nor even privy to ruach haqodesh have ever
experienced. For that matter, even nevi'im (other than MRAH) have a hard
time processing their own experience of nevu'ah; we are told that's why
they wrap the message up in familiar physical imagery.

2- It could well be a non-boolean distinction. Trying to find the line
between nevu'ah and ryach haqodesh may be as fuzzy as trying to find
where red stops and maroon begins.

I am therefore resolved to say that those who have "seen maroon" know
the difference, but I do not expect to know what it might be.

Because how can we distinguish by effects between

1- Nisnabei velo yada mah nisnabei, such as when Avraham says before the
   aqeida "venishtachaveh venashuvah aleikhem", that more than one of them
   will return, and
2- The author of Esther knowing what Haman was thinking in 6:6, R'
   Eliezer's proof that the book was written beruach haqodesh?

An indictation that they may all be points on the same spectrum is
Sanhedrin 11a saying that ruach haqodesh left BY with the passing of
Chagai, Zekhariah and Malakhi. I would have thought they marked the end
of nevu'ah. Seems to me that nevu'ah is being called RhQ, and the RhQ
we were left with after them is being deprecated as nothing in coparison.

(The same way "Rav Ashi veRavina sof hora'ah" didn't obviate the need
to continue giving a heter hora'ah. It seems to be rabbinic idiom.)

Similarly, between the ruach haqodesh of kesuvim vs that of chazal
or whomever would just be more points of gradation about a kind of
experience we are totally clueless about, and should simply take the
statements as is.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
http://www.aishdas.org
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