אמת ליעקב פרשת בראשית
ודברי רמב"ן אלה הם שעמדו לי בשעה שראינו איך שבני אדם יורדים מעל המטוס ע"י סולם על גלגל הלבנה, וחשבתי בלבי מה יענה כעת הרמב"ם ז"ל שכתב שהלבנה היא בעלת צורה רוחנית, והרהרתי בלבי שכעת נצחה הקבלה את הפיליסופיא, ונחמתי את עצמי בדברי רמב"ן אלו.
There is a well known dispute between the Ramban and Rambam concerning the nature of the heavenly being such as the moon and stars. Rambam claims they are conscious intelligent entities while Ramban says they are similar to the Earth. When the astronauts descended on the moon, I realized that the Rambam had been wrong and the Ramban was correct, Thus Kabbala had succeeded while philosophy had failed.
Very interesting questions he asks. But Reb nosson Slifkin questioned chazal's science and got banned. The Chatam sofer did the same, but was too great for anyone else to question him.
ReplyDeleteAssuming he (and other Gedolim) consider the moreh nevuchim to also be non-mesorah philosophy, and apparently the chatam sofer also said that - in response the Ohr Sameach _ Rav Meir simcha ztl says that the Guide of the perplexed is written in the same spirit as the mishneh Torah of the Rambam. (Heard from Rav milevsky ztl , one of the roshei yeshiva of Ohr Sameach).
ReplyDeleteThe bigger question is: If the Rambam were to have come back to life in 1969, what would he have said then?
ReplyDeleteThe Rambam is not Chazal. Same for Chasam Sofer.
ReplyDeleteHe would learn to speak English or Yiddish. But presumably he would move to Israel, where he might rebuke the anti-zionists, or on the other hand the zionists.
ReplyDeleteIt's a question I ask my self all the time. However, in the shemona Perakim, he makes another of these scientific statements, that it is an impossibility for a metal ship to fly in the air like a bird. What would he say about that?
His point there was that the imagination can come up with combinations of real items to form something unreal, such as combining a ship with a bird to imagine a flying ship. It was not a statement about whether a flying ship will ever exist.
DeleteThese rabbis that you mention are far greater than the Hareidi people who ban books these days. They also know more about what Chazal said and the status of their comments on secular matters, e.g. science.
ReplyDeleteWhere in the written Torah does it tell us we need to consult the sanhedrin for secular or scientific matters?
In any case, a Sanhedrin can make mistakes - there are korbanot for these errors, called "Horayot" hence the Mesechet Horayot. Chazal were the Sanhedrin of their age, but there was sanhedrin even in times of King David, of the Neviim etc.
ReplyDeleteShmonah perakim is part of perush on mishnayot
ReplyDeleteThe CS is at the end of RDE's book.
ReplyDeleteSource?
ReplyDeleteWhich Perek of the 8?
Haven't you seen that IR?
ReplyDeleteYes. The Ohr Sameach wrote a commentary on the Rambam mishne Torah, and said moreh nevuchim was totally at one with the MT.
ReplyDeleteCh.1
ReplyDeleteוהחלק המדמה הוא הכח אשר יזכור רשומי
המוחשים אחר העלמם מקרבת החושים אשר השיגום, וירכיב קצתם אל קצתם ויפריד
קצתם מקצתם, ולזה ירכיב זה הכח מן הענינים אשר השיגם, ענינים שלא השיגם
כלל, ואי אפשר להשיגם, כמו שידמה האדם ספינת ברזל רצה באויר, ואדם שראשו
בשמים ורגליו בארץ, ובהמה באלף עין על דרך משל והרבה מאלו הנמנעות ירכיבם
הכח המדמה וימציאם בדמיון:
The imagination
is that faculty which retains impressions of things perceptible to the
mind, after they have ceased to affect directly, the senses which
conceived them. This faculty, combining some of these impressions and
separating others from one another, thus constructs out of originally
perceived ideas some of which it has never received any impression, and
which it could not possibly have perceived. For instance, one may
imagine an iron ship floating in the air, or a man whose head reaches
the heaven and whose feet rest on the earth, or an animal with a
thousand eyes, and many other similar impossibilities which the
imagination may construct and endow with an existence that is fanciful.
Thank you for sharing. I learned the Rambam's Shemonah Perakim many years ago, and I didn't remember him using that illustration. I wish that I could have total recall of everything I've learned, but until then "chazara" is always in order.
ReplyDeleteA possible reason why I didn't remember it is that it wasn't meaningful to me, that the Rambam mentioned a scientific fact based on the state of technology in his day. The Rambam surely observed birds flying, and the fact that they're heavier than air didn't disturb his world view. Yet he couldn't fathom that something as heavy as an "iron ship" would be able to overcome gravity and fly.
The question is where did the Rambam get his ideas about the moon? We do know that Chazal tell us about a discussion that the "moon" had with Hashem, as a result of which the moon was demoted to a lesser stature. So we see that Chazal understood that the moon had a spiritual component to it. Is "man on the moon" a refutation to that Chazal? No.
BTW, notice that R' Yaakov used the word ראינו, "we saw", implying that he watched it (on television).
בשעה שראינו איך שבני אדם יורדים מעל המטוס ע"י סולם על גלגל הלבנה
It is well known that he went to watch it on television.
DeleteFascinating to read the Hebrew - just like Rav Moshe, z"l, never used the word "misrad" but kept writing "office" in Hebrew, and here it's how they got off the plane. As if modern Hebrew simply didn't exist.
DeleteHe was great in the science of his day. He did not have future knowledge. Things have changed.
ReplyDeleteThat's been one of the fundamental disagreements between the rationalists and the irrationalists.
DeleteThe rationalists hold that if Chazal and folks like Rambam came back to life today, they'd want to learn all about modern science, astronomy, medicine, etc. The irrationalists hold that Chazal would announce that all modern knowledge is a lie and illusion when it contradicts what they said way back when.
A question for the Talmudic experts here.
DeleteRav yochanan Ben Zakkai said that the dead don't make impure, and the parah adumah doesn't make pure. What exactly is he saying there?
Tumah/tahara is completely a spiritual concept and works outside of physical rules. It happens because God says it does. The parah adumah has no intrinsic properties, rather it all happens because of the Divine Will.
DeleteThat's what I feared you might say 🤦🏻♀️
DeleteSoloveitchik says in halachic man, the same about shechita. What difference does it make? Which part of the neck is slaughtered? Learn and be rewarded.
Delete"The parah adumah has no intrinsic properties"
DeleteThe problem with asking a question of Yeshiva trained people, is they are not able to actually provide an answer to the question, they just repeat what has been asked of them.
Fortunately for me, rambam disagrees with this idea that there's no instrinsic value to the Torah.
Deletehttps://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1517151/jewish/Tumat-Met-Chapter-1.htm
So hopefully that's one zchut for me over YK.
Remember that the Torah has to be practiced both in the physical and the material world but it's the combination that matters.
DeleteAlso remember there's parts of the Torah that never got practiced but the act of learning those sugyos have value, like Ben Sorer and Ir Nidachas.
So yes, the answer remains that this world was built for us to use to worship God according to how He revealed in the Torah.
Gmar Tov.
Deleteyou probably meant in the physical and spiritual, since material is the same as physical..
Parah adumah is physical, and was practiced. I think that Ben Zakkai had an approach to Torah that says the Torah is essentially arbitrary, and has no absolute meaning. Halacha , language, are also meaningless, it is only what he and his colleagues say that gives meaning to anything. Unfortunately he presided over the worst era in Jewish history.
You didn't answer the question where the Rambam got his ideas about the moon? Also about the Chazal that indicates that the moon has a spiritual component to it.
ReplyDeleteI've no idea where Rambam got his concept from. The chazal may be aggadah, and perhaps the moon was a chip off a larger body.
ReplyDelete