[Avodah] Die!

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Oct 22, 2024 at 11:54:58AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
...
> What emerges from this - in MY mind - is a very different story than the
> medrash I cited above. Moshe did not *allow* his body to die. Rather,
> Hashem commanded and Moshe obeyed.

> I want to suggest that when Rabenu Bechaiye said that humans are unable to
> sleep or die at will, that applies only to ordinary humans. It does not
> apply to humans who could survive 40 days and nights without food or water,
> and certainly not to humans who were able to travel to a place from where
> they could see Hashem's "back"....

The Ran in derashos 3, 4 and 5 writes about "Velo qam navi od biYisrael
keMosheh..." (Devarim 34:10) What about free will?

See:
    https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.3.3
    https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.4.7
    https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.5.7

The Ran holds that Moshe was a neis, a beryah bifnei atzmo. (RYBS may have
chosen the idiom "sui generis", it was one of his usuals.) The reason
why the pasuq can guarantee that one else in history would every reach
Moshe's level of nevu'ah is because Moshe was made with a relationship
between seikhel and guf that Hashem was saying He would never do again.
Moshe's seikhel was muvdal, like a mal'ach's, and it rode in a body without
the connection to it.

Notably, elsewhere in derashah 5
(<https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.5.16>) the Ran writes that 
despite being an idolater, was on a higher level than Canaanim and
more fit to raise imahos because his error was intellectual, not in
middos. And errors in thought can be fixed using the seikhel alone. But
middos also involve the body. (I am guessing the Ran is invoking 4 humor
theory, but we would get the same result talking about brain chemistry,
hormones and neural wiring.)

So he seems to be developing a general theory about the body-mind problem.

(Not giving opinions about where it's going, because my chaburah on the
subject is on a pre-Aliyah pause. I'll let you know when we get at least
past derashah 7, which I know revists many of the themes of 5.)

I realize the Ran's saying that Moshe's constiution and ability to have a
unique kind of nevu'ah was a neis throws out a lot of sermons. Rabbanim,
Kiruv teachers, and some Mashigichim like boasting about how in Judaism
all the heroes are normal people who used their potential to be someone
great.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Feeling grateful  to or appreciative of  someone
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   or something in your life actually attracts more
Author: Widen Your Tent      of the things that you appreciate and value into
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    your life.         - Christiane Northrup, M.D.