[Avodah] Bereishit

[Micha Berger]

Did you intentionally reply off-list? Or should I copy your email and this
one onto Avodah?

On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 08:07:16PM -0500, Zvi Lampel wrote:
:> While the Rambam treats nature as a hypostatis,

: Looked that up in the dictionary. Don't want to get bogged down in your
: usage.

A lot resided in the word "hypostasis", and a reason why I couldn't find
a more apt word among normal English ones.

:> the Ramban famously says there is no "it" to nature.

: Famously, but phantomly. Ramban (see, for example, on Shmos 25:24) no less
: than Rambam, holds that olom kiminhago noheig. Ramban repeats a number of
: times that each "Va-yehi  khein" in Breishis means that Hashem made that
: minhag permanent.

But it's minhago shel olam. Not an "it".

The Ramban talks about nature being a pattern in events, but those events
are /directly/ caused by HQBH. It is this direct causality that people
mistake for his saying there is no teva.

According to the Rambam, nature is the product of the Seikhel haPo'al,
which is acted upon by mal'akhim, which, if you chase the chain of
causality up to the start, is a product of hashgachah kelalis and
Divine Da'as. But there is an "it" there. Teva is a metaphysical object,
not a pattern.

See Moreh 2:11-12 (ch. 10 may be a useful prelude.)

(Nevu'ah is also mediated through the Seikhel haPo'al [2:35], but that's
a different subject.)

A homo sapien who lacks da'as is less of a person, and thus to that
extent is less subject to hashgachah peratis. Instead, he is left to teva
(Moreh 3:18). Not that he is left to minhago shel olam, but that HQBH
delegates his fate.

I tried to semi-explain by talking about the Ramban's lack of "'it' to
nature". But you apparently took me to mean there is no nature. Rather
than no metaphysical "object" to pin nature on.

That's what I was talking about, and most of your reply doesn't actually
address the chiluq I'm making.

: So, Ramban in context does not mean that there is no such thing as nature.

No, but he does mean there is no such "thing" as nature. It's not a
hypostatis.

: His point in all his famous and repeated declarations is that it is a
: central Torah fact that man's deeds are rewarded or punished by the forces
: of nature, and that this is miraculous. No different from the Rambam. He,
: just as Rambam, is not saying that outside of this area there is no minhago
: shel olom, no "it" to nature.

: Which doesn't mean that creation happened by miracles we could understand
: either. It justifies the Michtav meiEliyahu's position that creation is
: incomprehensible by any means. And instead we pick which simplified model,
: which perspective, we choose to explain the unknowable from.

: Except that the Rambam speaking for himself declares,

: MN 2:17 (see http://press.tau.ac.il/perplexed/chapters/chap_2_17.htm, note
: 6, for a ‎compilation of translations of this passage.)‎

: For we, the community following in the footsteps of Moshe Rabbeynu and
: Avraham ‎Avinu, aleihem hashalom, believe that the world came into being in
: such-and-such a ‎form, and became such-and-such from such-and-such (haya
: kach mi-kach), and such ‎was created after such.‎

:>See pereq 30. There was no time, no 6 days. Just 6 steps in logic.

: The interpretation that when the Torah says days it means levels is given
: by the Ralbag, based upon, and compelled by, his take of Chazal who say
: that Hashem created everything full bloom instantly and simultaneously. But
: that's (just one of the possibilities) offered by Ralbag, not Rambam...

It's the Ralbag's PESHAT in the Rambam, not his own shitah. See also the
Abravanel and The Aqeidas Yitzchaq (shaar 3) on Bereishis. The
Abarbanel specifically endorces the Ralbag's "yesod" in understanding
the Rambam. https://www.sefaria.org/Abarbanel_on_Torah%2C_Genesis.1.1.10
This is how the Rambam was understood by other rishonim. Even by a
non-Aristotilian like R' Yitzchaq Arama.

RYBS too, Mainodies between Philosophy & Halakhah, pg 187.

In any case, the Rambam's problem with time is because in his world (again,
following Aristo) time is a property of a process. Until the spheres spin,
there are no processes, no time. The notion of time as a dimension in which
processes occur evolves into being through Galieleo and Newton. When the
Rambam analyzes "zeman", he isn't talking about time the way we think of
time.

His problem is with zeman as a whole without spheres, not yom before
the sun.

And it's not a problem we modern people would face, anyway.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The most prevalent illness of our generation is
micha at aishdas.org        excessive anxiety....  Emunah decreases anxiety:
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya