Avodah Mailing List

Volume 38: Number 101

Fri, 27 Nov 2020

• 1. Re: ad hayom hazeh (Akiva Miller)
• 2. Re: Special Places (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Re: Special places (Ben Bradley)
• 4. ?ein anu bekein? (Rich, Joel)
• 5. Meaning of life (Rich, Joel)
• 6. Re: ad hayom hazeh (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: ad hayom hazeh (Micha Berger)
• 8. Regarding the Tahom (Brent Kaufman)

.
R' Joel Rich asked:

> Yes, but theoretically if each individual made decisions that
> in total did not get to the desired end state, doesn't this
> imply that HKBH would have to limit someone's bechira to reach
> the end state?

I don't know the answer to that, but the question reminded me of some
points that I've been keeping on my back burner for a while:

1) Looking from the perspective of Adam and Chava before they sinned: Was
"the desired end state" an entry into Olam Haba the very next day? Or was
"the desired end state" that they should err, and then grow by learning
from that error?

2) From the perspective of the recently-freed Egyptian slaves: Was "the
desired end state" a quick entry into Eretz Yisrael? Or was "the desired
end state" that we should learn the lessons of 40 years in the desert, and
of a lengthy conquest of the Land?

And I'm sure others can come up with similar questions.

"Gam zu l'tova" - Any time good results from a person's bad decision, was
this part of HaShem's original plan? Or did He change His plan to fit the
new circumstances?

I'm confident that plenty of support can be found for all sorts of ways of
looking at this.

Akiva Miller
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.
R' Micha Berger wrote:

> One of the more quoted thoughts of the Meshekh Chokhmah is his
> idea that there is no such thing as inherent qedushah. Qedushah
> is caused by human activity.

It may depend on what we mean by "inherent" qedushah, If there is a
qedushah that is automatic and it's been there since Bereshis, then where
did it come from? Rather, something caused the qedushah to be there. But it
doesn't have to be humans. Hashem put the qedushah into Shabbos, did He not?

> He goes as far as to say that thinking that an object or
> place can be inherently holy is already the beginning of AZ!

Yes, of course. If "inherently holy" means that its holiness came from some
source other than Hashem, then "beginning of AZ" doesn't even begin to
describe how bad that idea is.

Hmmm...

If I disagree with the idea that something can be inherently qadosh, then
what about things that are inherently large, or inherently blue, or
inherently sweet? These are qualities that the thing was made with. Someone
*made* it large, or blue, or sweet. So too, someone can make a mezuzah, and
it will be holy from the very beginning. But it's not an "inherent"
holiness, because the sofer *put* qedushah into the mezuzah when he made
it. So too, the apple is sweet because its Creator put sweetness into it
from the beginning.There is no inherent qedusha; it has to come from
somewhere.

Akiva Miller
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How does the MC?s clal apply to kedusha of of time and of person? I presume
it would need to apply there unless you posit that kedusha has a completely
different meaning in those contexts. 
But kedushas Shabbos seems very clearly independant of human input. In fact
it has been extensively argued that the whole point of Shabbos is
connecting to a kedusha inherent to maaseh bereshis. Ata kidashta, in the
explicit words of tefila. 
As for kedusha of person, you could argue that the Leviim earned Kedusha by
their response to the eigel. But what of Aharon and kedushas kehuna? He
didn?t distinguish himself at the eigel. And even assuming that it was his
otherwise sterling personality and midos which earned him and his
descendants kedushas kehuna, can we really say that one is a direct result
of the other? Doesn?t seem to be a clear enough causation 

The Rama frequently invokes ?ein anu bekein? (we?re not conversant?)as a reason we don?t follow something allowed by the Shulchan Aruch)
Do you think this was an objective or subjective difference between the communities?

KT
Joel Rich

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I listened to a podcast from earlier this year interviewing Brian Greene a well-known physicist.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/108-brian-greene-until-end-time-mind-matter-our-search/id1352860989?i=1000468647766

If anyone has a chance to listen to it I'd be interested in hearing their thoughts, my understanding (or lack) follows.

One topic was free will. Brian is a physicalist but tries to explain how we
might have free will or the perception of it. I'm not sure I understood it
and I'd appreciate some help.

He also states that it's better to believe that there is no outside force
that gives purpose to our lives because that allows us to determine our own
purpose. If I understood correctly, we all look into our own gut to figure
out what we feel gives our individual lives purpose.

Ethics and morals also come from our guts but he does allow that other civilizations might have their own which differ from ours

Very interesting however was how he allowed that saying Kaddish with a
minyan when his father died was very meaningful to him to attach to the
ancient tradition rather than something recently mad up.

I've listened to a lot of similar podcasts and I still have not found the
answer to the question that if you really believe this why not just do
whatever makes you individually happy and not  care about what anybody else
or civilization thinks.

Thoughts on how others think?

KT
Joel Rich

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ADDRESSEE.  IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL 
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On 24/11/20 8:43 pm, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> 1) Looking from the perspective of Adam and Chava before they sinned: 
> Was "the desired end state" an entry into Olam Haba the very next day? 
> Or was "the desired end state" that they should err, and then grow by 
> learning from that error?

Both.  The original desired end state was to go immediately, and that 
would have been good.  But the end state that we will eventually achieve 
after thousands of years of work will be better.

The same applies to your second question. Had our ancestors entered the 
Land three days after leaving Chorev, it would have been good.  What 
they achieved after 40 years in the desert was in some ways better -- 
except for the fact that they didn't immediately build the permanent 
BHMK.  But even that will eventually work out, because when we finally 
do build it it will be better than it would have been.

Basically all these boil down to the same question: the advantage of 
Baalei Teshuva over Tzadikim, or the advantage of the Or Mitoch 
Hachoshech, the light that comes out of darkness.  Obviously "echta 
ve'ashuv" is not a derech.  But bediavad it turns out that by sinning 
and repenting one ends up in a better place than one would have achieved 
without the sin.


[Email #2. -micha]

R' Joel Rich asked:
>  Yes, but theoretically if each individual made decisions that
>  in total did not get to the desired end state, doesn't this
>  imply that HKBH would have to limit someone's bechira to reach
>  the end state?

A simple answer is that that is so unlikely to happen that we need not 
take it into consideration.  It's theoretically possible, but only in 
the sense that it's theoretically possible for all the air in a room to 
gather on one side, and suffocate those who are on the other side. In 
practice that is what we call impossible, and we never allow for the 
possibility that it might happen.  The same would apply to the 
possibility, for instance, not only that the Mitzrim would refuse to 
enslave the Jews but that no nation would take their place. In practice 
that couldn't have happened.

-- 
Zev Sero            Wishing everyone a *healthy* and happy 5781
z...@sero.name       "May this year and its curses end
                      May a new year and its blessings begin"

On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 06:33:41AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> Yes, but theoretically if each individual made decisions that in total
> did not get to the desired end state, doesn't this imply that HKBH would
> have to limit someone's bechira to reach the end state?

You started out talking about Be'er Sheva being called that "ad hayom
hazeh". I replied by quoting myself talking about yemos hamashiach.

Do you believe that the guarantee there will be a mashiach limits
bechirah?

OTOH, there is a kind of limitation of bechirah that you're probably
perfectly okay with. You cannot choose to violate the laws of physics.
Perhaps such statements about the future are based on HQBH knowing there
is no way to avoid the outcome.

Also, WRT my case (yemos hamashiach), there's the famous take on kulo
chayav that Hashem would "step in" to do it Himself miraculously if
we all choose not to.

Can you do anything with these seeds to grow yourself an answer?




On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 08:43:44PM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> 1) Looking from the perspective of Adam and Chava before they sinned: Was
> "the desired end state" an entry into Olam Haba the very next day? Or was
> "the desired end state" that they should err, and then grow by learning
> from that error?

I think that both were desired. Hashem's plan including bechirah means that
the plan is more about given we do / become X, He will respond Y than any
one path.


Off topic: But I think that had Chava & Adam not sinned, there never
would have been a split between olam hazeh and olam haba, and they would
have remained in the one synthesis olam they were already in.

RAYKook defines techiyas hameisim as a time when humanity gets beyond
the illusion that olam haba, where the dead are, is actually a different
place than "here".

REED has a similar take about olamos, in which he says that the cheit
changed Adam's perception, and it's perception that is the difference
between olam ha'yetzirah and olam ha'asiyah, a world run by the
laws of nisim and that run by those of teva. (MeE vol I, pp 304-312,
"Olasmos deAsiyah veYetzirah", and vol II "Yemei Bereishis veYamei Olam"
pp 140-154.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
Author: Widen Your Tent      Kippur with that intent.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                     - Rav Yisrael Salanter

I watch a YouTube channel about science explained in an enjoyable way which
recently discussed the source of water on Earth, and it was focused on a
new series of discoveries about water existing throughout the Earth's
mantle and both cores; outer, and even inner. It posits that there is more
water in the mantle than even that in the surface oceans. However, it isn't
found in one contiguous body of water, but rather, embedded throughout the
solid structure of rock and at the core, under so much pressure that it
chemically bonds to the nickel in chemical bonds.
Regardless of where this discovery is taken either in practice or theory,
it is interesting to think about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfg3w2oBaFY

Chaimbaruch Kaufman
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