[Avodah] Historicity of Aggadta

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2018 at 12:20:19AM -0500, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
: RSM and RMB share this belief, but it has no basis in the Rambam's
: words or context. (And the reasoning is circular. The reason RSM
: believes Rambam would say the veracity of a reported is unimportant
: is because Chazal are not interested...)

1- The Rambam says that history is unimportant.
2- and that they only discuss important things. Even if my "only the
   tachlis" was based on Ibn Tibon's inaccurate translation, that's
   not the only place he says so.
3- And that chakhamim (lower case c, including upper-case-c Chakhmeinu
   za"l) only discuss these things in metaphor, as we see from Mishlei.

Like the next line, "Ve'eikh na'asimam al shemechaberim chokhmah al
derekh mashal" -- like Shelomo did. To the Rambam, speaking in mashal
umelitzah and chidah are the hallmarks of how Chakhamim communicate.
That section closes by saying this rule applies to the Rambam's own
work, "ve'az tistakeil besifri zeh veyo'il lakh, be"hA".

It's not that deep truths are an exception from normal communication
and only they are done in mashal.

It's that eis la'asos Lashem, in order not to lose halakhah we need to
write it down in plaintext!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha at aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
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