[Avodah] The Ram of the Akeida

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 03, 2025 at 06:29:55AM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> There is a mishna in perek 5 of Pirkei Avos which lists several things that
> were created at Bein Hashmashos just prior to the Shabbos of Bereishis. My
> understanding is that they were all miraculous, unnatural things...

My understanding is similar, but with a nuance...

First, nissim are pe'ulos, not cheftzos. Or in something closer to
English: "miraculous" is an adverb, not an adjective.

So we need a new category for objects whose essence or other properties
can't exist within nature.

And what we see is that a list of such objects is listed as being
created in the gray area between being made during the creation process
and being after. Like an exception built into the rules.

But that difference doesn't change the core of your question: Mah
nishtanah ha'ayil hazeh mikol ha'eilim? Why yeish omerim that it have
to be made before the rules of nature were entirely sealed and started
running?

Some answers were already provided by R Sholom Simon.

Here's a creative addition to the list:

The Rambam (Moreh 2:42) writes that "Vayisa es einav" is a term
referring to prophetic vision.

And if so, Avraham sudden ability to see the ram may have been
either

- The Rambam take -- that the rest of the story is prophetic. Which
is what he does with parashas Vayeira, no?

- The more common take -- that this was an angelic ayil that just
now became physical, so that it only came into this world in response
to the aqeida moment. There and not there, like a Schreodinger Cat,
ready to appear the moment the knift was lifted.

A lichtikn un freilechn Chanukah!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The same boiling water
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   that softens the potato, hardens the egg.
Author: Widen Your Tent      It's not about the circumstance,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but rather what you are made of.