[Avodah] The role of gematria, and remez in general

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri Sep 1 09:34:21 PDT 2017


>From the same Areivim thread, a discussion of the concept of gemateria
itself reached Avodah topicality.

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 6:45am EDT, R Ben Rothke wrote on Areivim:
> True.  But there is a fundamental difference in that the use of Pesok li
> pesukach is detailed in the gemara and sanctioned by Chazal. I don't see
> how anyone could compare R' Brody's use of gematria to that.

> R' Hershel Schachter noted that in the braisa of R' Yishmael (and in other
> opinions giving different numbers than R' Yishmael's 13), gematria is not
> one of them methods used to darshan Torah.

And on Fri, Sep 01, 2017 at 12:12am PDT, R Simon Montagu replied:"
: Surely RHS didn't intend to dismiss gematria altogether! Hazal themselves
: use gematria, from the Mishna onwards (e.g. Uktzin 3:12) if not before

Thinking in terms of the Pardes model of four layers of Torah...

What is the role of Remez?

We know from famous examples like "ayin tachas ayin" that peshat teaches
mussar and derash teaches halakhah. For that matter, the link between
peshat and mussar is obvious in seifer Bereishis as well as most of Nakh
-- and you can't darshen Nakh. (Esther aside.)

Of course, in many cases, there is no divergence and the halakhah captures
the values in an intuiitive way. In those cases, the din is as per peshat
in the pasuq.

And sod... that's the big picture. That much the mequbaliem and the Rambam
agree on. They may debate whether one builds their worldview from Qabbalah
or Greek Philosophy, but both call their candidate "sod".

But remez? What's it for?

It seems I'm not alone. he.wikipdia.org (Hebrew wikipedia), "pardes", has
links to peshat, derash and sod, but remez... no entry.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
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