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<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><font face="Arial">On Areivim, R.
Chesky Salomon noted:<br>
</font></div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:mailman.46461.1348162115.19724.areivim-aishdas.org@lists.aishdas.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><big><font face="Arial">In ''Psalm 8 as an Educational Text'' (Collected Writings VII p. 385) he [RSRH] writes about
a misguided approach to education:
"They act as if the most mature philosopher knows much more about the
nature of G-d than the innocent soul of any child, or as if it were
even necessary for us to know (and we were therefore in a position to
know) about the essence of G-d in order to conduct ourselves with
decency and morality in His world! [...] As if any endeavor that
presumes to delve, by philosophical doctrine or dialectics, into the
essence of G-d -- whether He exists and what He is like -- were not
founded mostly on baseless and meaningless fallacies, on a
misinterpretation of the subject studied and of the means to attain
the desired knowledge!"</font></big></pre>
</blockquote>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial"><span style="color: black;">RSRH
writes
similarly in his Chumash commentary on Breishis, end of 6:6
(I’m using the new
Haberman edition translation, except for the second sentence,
where I maintain
the more delicious translation in the older Isaac Levy
edition):<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial"><span style="color: black;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">‘’Let us here make a general
remark about anthropomorphic expressions<br>
in Scripture.<span style="color:black"> For so long people have
philosophized
all round these expressions to remove the danger of the
slightest thought of
any materiality or corporeality of G-d that, at the end, one
runs very nearly
into the danger of losing all idea of the personality of G-d.</span>…This
is
also the view of the <i>Ra’avad</i>, the distinctively Jewish<br>
thinker: Belief in the Personality of G-d is more important than
the<br>
speculations of those who reject the attribution of material
features to<br>
G-d.’’<o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">The view RSRH attributed to
the Raavad has also been described as the real point the rishon
R’ Moshe Taku
meant to make (as opposed to an actual belief in Hashem’s
corporeality,
attributed to him by some).<o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">Question: We know the Raavad
questioned the Rambam’s labeling a min one misled by Midrashim
and pesukim to attribute
physicality to Hashem. But where does the Raavad make the point
RSRH attributes
to him: that belief in the Personality of G-d is more important
than ‘’the
speculations of those’’ who preach his incorporeality?<br>
<br>
</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial">Zvi Lampel</font><br>
<font face="Arial"><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<pre wrap=""><font face="Arial">
</font></pre>
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