[Avodah] R. Akiva, Bar Kochba and Zecharya HaNovi

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 06:44:42PM -0400, hankman via Avodah wrote:
: R. Micha Berger wrote:
:> I doubt the Rambam, the "he" I am trying to understand in the text
:> you quoted, would agree with this premise about animals before the
:> eitz hada'as.

: So how does the Rambam explain Bereishis 1:30?

Well, if you look at Moreh 1:30, you'll see that the Rambam considers maaseh
bereishis to be atemporal, 6 logical stages of unfolding of reality, not
steps separated in time.

So I don't know if I should assume anything about how he reads pasuq 30.

But I do note that if taken literally, the pasuq merely says that Hashem
gave the  plants to the animals for food. A statement about one of the
functions of plantsl and that Adam can't hord all the plants for himself,
since animals need it too. It needn't mean that only plants served a food.

The statement from Chazal (quoted by Rashi) is a derashah. The Ohr haChaim
spends time justifying it, if you want to see the medrashic steps in
detail. But it's not peshat, and therefore not necessarily the Rambam
would take literally.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             There's only one corner of the universe
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