[Avodah] Rav Shimon Schwab on Women Learning Torah

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Wed Feb 3 12:37:39 PST 2016


On Wed, Feb 03, 2016 at 02:42:22PM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:
: Dare one suggest that RSRH understood the RAMBAM 
: better than you or me, and that you are 
: misinterpreting or misreading the RAMBAM?

I am inclined to agree. Our default assumption should be that 128 years
of peer review would not have raised RSRH to be RSRH if he weren't far
more capable of understanding a classic source than anyone on-list is.

That said, the point of Avodah discussion is to have shaqla vetarya to
get to the truth(s). Invoking authority really doesn't serve the point;
it shuts down exploration of Torah rather than foster it. We need to
understand the authority, and to ask a question when his statement
or premise looks wrong to us. With the assumption that an answer
exists. (Again, because otherwise RSRH wouldn't be RSRH.) But we do need
to know the answer. And besides, when looking at a machloqes, it's fair
and within emunas chakhamim to find Y's question stronger than X's answer.

That said... RSRH does not agree with central pieces of the Rambam's
hashkafah (as he discusses in Letter 18); and in that he is arguably
firmly in the majority. This gets back to another thread, R/Dr Avi
Kadish's comparison of explanations of the Bira Doleqes, and the Rambam's
centralization of abstract theological knowledge.

Of course the Rambam places learning as a precondiction to nevu'ah.
But is this agreed upon, or part of that basic machloqes?

For example, I think the Rambam's words (Moreh 2:38) require a huge
burden of proof and are in general not accepted by other baalei mesorah:
    It is through the intellect that the influence reaches the imaginative
    faculty. How then could the latter be so perfect as to be able to
    represent things not previously perceived by the senses, if the
    same degree of perfection were withheld from the intellect, and the
    latter could not comprehend things otherwise than in the usual manner,
    namely, by means of premiss, conclusion, and inference? This is the
    true characteristic of prophecy, and of the disciplines to which
    the preparation for prophecy must exclusively be devoted.

The prep for prophecy is "exclusively" about developing one's reason?
Nothing about internalizing a set of middos that embody vehalakhta
bidrakhav? Nothing about having the anavah to hear His Voice rather than
one's own?

Anything like that in Chazal?

Between the two, I would think RSSchwab's hashkafah is far closer to
what most of us actually believe and follow. For all of the Rambam being
The Rambam.

If we reject that idea that intellectual perfection is of a higher
kind than moral perfection, we have no reason to accept the Rambam's
assumption that nev'uah requires some set of knowledge, and thus that
a woman would have to have learned Torah to become a nevi'ah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What we do for ourselves dies with us.
micha at aishdas.org        What we do for others and the world,
http://www.aishdas.org   remains and is immortal.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Albert Pine



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