<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<title>Avodah: Volume 30, Number 18</title>
<a name="02"> <font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">Meir
Shinnar </font></a><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><a
name="02">Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:43:36 -0500</a><a name="02"> wrote</a><br>
<a name="02"></a><br>
</font>
<blockquote><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">To respond
in general to Micha, where I think phrasing issues matter:
We agree that the Rambam believed that his approach represented
the true
mesora, albeit hidden, of hazal, and that his understanding of
tanach and
midrash as consonant with truth was the true self understanding
of hazal.<br>
<br>
</font></blockquote>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">Yes.</font>
<blockquote><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">... This is
where the fundamental
disagreement is - that his [Rambam's--ZL] understandings of both
tanach and midrash is
not based on a statement that hazal say so (as RZL insists),<br>
<br>
</font></blockquote>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">Again, no. Both RMB and
I have repeatedly corrected this kind of misrepresentation of our
stand. We are not saying the Rambam was bound to offer only
peirushim already stated by Chazal. We are only insisting that
they must not be inconsistent with Chazal (as would be the
supplanting the plain meaning with an allegorical contra Chazal
or, as RMB emphasizes, supplanting an allegorical meaning with a
literal one, if contra Chazal.)<br>
<br>
If I wrote something that said or implied I thought the Rambam
could not offer his own peshat to a posuk without a Chazal to back
up that particular peshat, please point it out to me and I will
retract. The general point is that the Rambam would not claim
pesukim meant something he thought was inconsistent with what the
consensus of Chazal thought. And if it would appear so, he (and
those who have defended him through the ages) appeal to darkei
peshat (becuse Chazal taught that ein mikra yptzie meedei
peshuto), specific ma'marei Chazal, and/or their principles (such
as olom k'minhago holeich) to show otherwise. (And as we have
seen, in the pesukim about the wolf and lamb in Messianic times,
the Rambam also defends his position by citing former, respected
commentators who already gave the allegorical explanation before
he did.)<br>
<br>
And in particular, we are talking about making a fundamental
uprooting of a pesukim's meanings--namely, to allegorical, when
Chazal took it as factual/historical or literal (such as the
Mabul).<br>
<br>
(I think RMB diverges with me on the criterion of peshat, but
listen, we're Jews, so of course we won't agree on everything...)<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<blockquote><font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"> ...However,
his understanding of the true meaning of tanach and TSBP</font><br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"> is NOT predicated
by the need for specific statements by hazal</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><br>
And neither RMB nor I have suggested so, if one takes ''specific
statements'' in the narrow sense you seem to).<br>
<br>
And yes, the Rambam was able to use the wisdom of his time to use
his sechel to complement the explanations Chazal gave to pesukim,
But not to disagree with the consensus of Chazal or invent a
meaning to their words that they could not have plausibly meant.<br>
<br>
Zvi Lampel</font>
</body>
</html>