[Avodah] What is SinAs Chinam

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 03:36:36PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
: >Rashi is pointing out his making a wrong choice. Not just that he
: >happened to do X which led to Y which led 2....
: 
: Where do you see that in the Rashi?  Rashi does nothing more than
: translate the word "anvosonuso" as "his tolerance".  I don't see how
: you're reading into it a value judgment.

"Savlanuso".

... and then continues: "shesaval es zeh, velo horgo." By saying he did
X, and didn't do un-X, isn't the attention being focused on his choice,
rather than on just that X "happened to" cause Y, which led to...?

In Rashi's hands, R' Yochanan is saying the BHMQ fell because RZBA let
BQ live because he chose savlanus and didn't choose killing him. How
is that not a blame statement?

And even without Rashi... Why does the story get interrupted by identifying
a single tanna's role in the causal chain? Two versions of the story, both
interrupting in different places to make different statements about the
role of the same middah? And you think that it's just another a-moral
statement about the illusion of happenstance like all the other steps in
the causal chain? I don't see it.

: As for the Maharsha, I pointed out the flaw in that approach, that
: it requires reading the other two incidents as morality stories too,
: and nobody attempts to do so.

Except if he too (as I read the emphasis in Rashi) saw the statement
about anvanus as telling you this one story is a morality lesson.

And who said nobody attempts tp treat the others that way? See the
self-same Maharsha. (We're talking about someone who took "ve'es hama'or
haqatan" and the shrinking of the moon as a morality lesson after all.
He might even assume every aggadita is.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Between stimulus & response, there is a space.
micha at aishdas.org        In that space is our power to choose our
http://www.aishdas.org   response. In our response lies our growth
Fax: (270) 514-1507      and our freedom. - Victor Frankl, (MSfM)