[Avodah] Rambam Prophesy

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 10:05:39PM -0400, Alexander Seinfeld via Avodah wrote:
>> Because he defines nevuah as a connection with Hashem, not as simply
>> receiving a message from Hashem.  Anyone can receive a message; Hashem
>> doesn't need Western Union to send them.  But that's not nevuah.
...
> Sounds like we are agreeing that Rambam deals with Laban and Avimelech's
> nevuah semantically. For conceptually, the exclusion of them is not at all
> obvious, for 2 reasons:

> 1. Most people would call a direct communication with God "nevuah".

But if the Abarbanel is correct (see my earlier email in this dicussion),
the Rambam doesn't understand nevu'ah to be communication with G-d at all,
not via Western Union, not even via a connection with Him.

Nevu'ah is an awareness of metaphysical entities higher up the chain and
how they are interacting. Yesoday haTorah 7:1 describes it as "lehavin
be'osan hatzuros haqedoshos vehatehoros". And 7:6 ends by telling us
how Moshe was unique because "veniqsherah da'ato le*Tzur* haOlamim".

Which is an awareness of new information, but learning by observation,
not by being taught or told about it.

> 2. And in the case of Avimelech, it's more than information, it's a
> conversation.

But we would have to show the Rambam's understanding of nevu'ah involves
a concept of conversation altogether.


If you aren't going to take the Rambam as the Abarbanel explains him,
you need another answer to the Ramban's question: How does Avraham "see"
bederekh nevu'ah the same mal'akhim who do things in the real world in the
rest of parashas Vayeira? Did the mal'akhim not destroy the 5 cities? Did
they not visit Lot? Did Lot prophetically "see" them as symbols in a
message communicated from G-d, or were they actually there to save him?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 What you get by achieving your goals
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