[Avodah] Would Seforno be Comfortable with Evolution?

[Zev Sero]

On 7/1/21 6:10 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> Seforno on Shenmos 4:11:
>      "Mi sam peh le'adam -- Who gave man a mouth?":
>      Mi nasan hahakhanos hativ'iyos bekoach teva ha'adam?
> 
> Notice "nasan" is lashon avar, and "sam" -- to give, and what was given
> was the natural preconditions that make teva ha'adam, things like a
> mouth that speaks.
> 
> It is an interesting circumlocution by the Seforno that seems to say
> that a person's biology wasn't created directly, but via processes
> Hashem put into place.

I don't see the circumlocution.  He's saying that Hashem, when He 
created the human species, gave it a nature of being able to talk.  The 
human nature is to have all the necessary natural equipment, physical 
and neurological, for talking.

About sam (past) vs yasim (future), see Malbim.  Moshe's hava amina was 
that a person by default has no power of speech, and Hashem has to put 
in each person such a power.  Therefore since he wasn't given this power 
it follows that his shlichus in the world doesn't need it.  Therefore 
jobs that do need it, such as leading the people, aren't for him.

Hashem tells him his premise is wrong.  The power of speech was given to 
Man at creation, and is baked in to the specification for the whole 
species. "Mi sam peh."  The fact that a person can speak is not the 
result of an individual decision by Hashem.  But as people are born, 
"yasum ilem", Hashem makes some of them dumb.  It's dumbness that's 
unnatural, and therefore the result of an individual decision.  So 
Moshe's dumbness, rather than indicating that his shlichus simply 
doesn't involve speech, actually indicates that his shlichus *does* 
include dumbness. It's precisely because he is well-known to be dumb 
that his eloquence on this occasion will be regarded as a miracle and 
will make people listen to him.


-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a *healthy* and happy 5781
zev at sero.name       "May this year and its curses end
                      May a new year and its blessings begin"