[Mesorah] All that glitters may not be...

[Micha Berger via Mesorah]

On Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 02:02:03PM +0000, Mandel, Seth via Mesorah wrote:
: So if they were refining gold to make the kelim, it would all be tahor.
: And since one cannot make the kelim out of "gruta'ot," i.e. pieces of
: metal, the case is close, and "tahor" cannot mean "not tame'".

Raw materials for a keli cannot become tamei. The only possibility
(not that I accept it) would be to define "zahav tahor" as an asei not
to melt down existing keilim directly into the molds for the kelei qodesh.

As I said, I think the old English translators got this one right. The
primary meaning of "tahor" is purity. The spiritual meaning, as is usual
for words that have both physical and spiritual meanings, is by parallel
to the physical one.

I gave one possible parallel yesterday. (The adulteration of the soul
with prejudices / habits / self identity of the body.) I should have
mentioned that it's consistent with the Ramchal and RSRH.

I should have also mentioned that I find this much more an Avodah topic
than a Mesorah one.

And I should NOT have bothered reiterating that nechoshes seems to refer
to copper and all its yellowish alloys. RSM's initial email had ended
up in my spam folder for some reason, so I came in mid-conversation.

This might be true lehalakhah as well -- that halakhah considers all these
forms of nechoshes equally kosher (eg for the mizbeiach or kiyor), and
it was up to the artisan to make the logical choice that fit his needs.

Otherwise, I think more precise terms, or idiomatic phrases (c.f. zahav
tahor) would have emerged, to specify which nechoshes had to be used.

While on the topic, I proposed on Avodah that barzel originally meant
"metal", and only came to mean iron and its alloys and the bronze age
shifted into the iron age. Which would mean that the chumash is telling
us that no metal can be used to make a mizbe'ach, not even bronze.
Assuming bronze could be used against a softer limestone or somesuch.
Otherwise, the need to resort to obscure methods of stonecutting like
a chilazon when it was both permissible and physically possible to make
the mizbeiach with bronze tools.

And I argued that this is common, the way the word "corn" referred to
any grain until the arrival of maize, and corn came to mean only the
new one -- which had no specific name in English until then.

It really depends on how we date matan Torah against these ages.

The Hittites got to the iron age first, thanks to sitting on land with
iron ore. And the first thing they did with it was making weapons --
iron swords and armor could stand up to bronze ones.

So barzel = iron = weapons would make sense, if Matan Torah happened
during this era, or perhaps another local culture hitting that landmark.

And this was pretty much what REMT tried to convince me, rejecting
my proposal.

IFF, however, the iron age didn't hit yet, the notion of not using iron
because some day in the future people will be associating iron with
killing people would require some explanation.

And since I don't really get the dating, nor did I see anyone discuss
stonecutting methods in the bronze age, I left the question open in my
mind. (An admission which may frustrate REMT, who may have thought he
succeeded in proving to me with certainty the error of my theory.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When we are no longer able to change a situation
micha at aishdas.org        -- just think of an incurable disease such as
http://www.aishdas.org   inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change
Fax: (270) 514-1507      ourselves.      - Victor Frankl (MSfM)