Thursday, January 29, 2015

Miracles are not the measure of a prophet

Hi,

"The compilers have agreed that miracles and wonders are an essential trait among the prophetic traits, and the level of the prophet is in accord with the level of his wonders. But I have already written in my מחזה ש-ד-י that it is not so. Performing miracles and wonders is not an essential trait of prophecy. It is not impossible that a person prophesy and not perform any miracles. These are not what indicate the level of the prophet, because they are performed only based on the need and demand of the moment…


"Our master Moshe was distinguished from other prophets by his level of prophecy, not his level of miracles. Thus the  text said (Devarim 34), 'And no other prophet arose in Israel like Moshe, whom Gd knew, face [to face].'"

(Don Isaac Abarbanel to Yehoshua 10)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

"The Book of the Righteous"

Hi,

"Shemuel II 1:18 says, 'And [King David] said to teach the Judeans the bow; this is recorded in Sefer haYashar [The Book of the Righteous].' What is Sefer haYashar?

"Rabbi Chiyya bar Abba cited Rabbi Yochanan: This is the book of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who are called righteous [yesharim], as in Bamidbar 23:10, [when Bilam said:] "'May my death be that of the righteous [yesharim].'...

"Rabbi Eliezer said: This is Mishneh Torah [Devarim]. Why is it called Sefer haYashar? Devarim 6:18 says, 'You shall perform that which is righteous [yashar] and good.'...

"Rabbi Shemuel bar Nachmeni said: This is the Book of Shoftim [Judges]. Why is it called Sefer haYashar? Shoftim 17:6 says, 'In those days there was no king in Israel; one would do that which was righteous [yashar] in his eyes.'..."

(Talmud, Avodah Zarah 25a)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Jerusalem, City of Justice

Hi,

Introduction: The word tzedek refers to justice.

"Jerusalem makes its residents just – [its biblical leaders were named] Malki Tzedek (Genesis 14), Adoni Tzedek (Joshua 10). Jerusalem itself is called tzedek, as in Isaiah 1:21, 'Righteousness would reside in her.'"

(Midrash, Bereishit Rabbah 43:6)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Monday, January 26, 2015

Supporting Torah scholars

Hi,

"Rav Dimi of Neherdaa brought dried figs by boat. The Exilarch said to Rava: Go and see; if he is a young scholar, set up the market for him."

(Talmud, Bava Batra 22a; this is quoted by Rabbi Moshe Isserles, Shut Rama 10, as a legal obligation)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Sunday, January 25, 2015

A help, opposite him

Hi,

"And G-d said: It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make for him a help, opposite him."
(Bereishit 2:18)

"If he merits, she will help him. If he does not merit, she will oppose him."
(Talmud, Yevamot 63a)

Have a great day,
Mordechai


Thursday, January 22, 2015

Frowning on pseudepigraphy

Hi,

[Pseudepigraphy = Attributing a work to someone other than its author]

"Rabbi Avahu cited Rabbi Yochanan: One may teach his daughter Greek; this is ornamental for her. 

"Shimon bar Abba heard this and said: Because Rabbi Avahu wants to teach his daughter Greek, he hung this upon Rabbi Yochanan.

"Rabbi Avahu heard this and said: May terrible things happen to me, if I did not hear this from Rabbi Yochanan!"

(Talmud Yerushalmi Shabbat 6:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The Prophet: A Breed Apart

Hi,

"Habr: Logically, the intellect sets the speaking being above all other living things, mandating that he develop an improved character, home and nation, and act rationally… And what level would you expect to be above this?

"King: The level of great sages?


"Habr: I am referring to a level which separates its holder qualitatively, like the difference between plant and mineral… This is the level of the indisputable prophet, via whom the masses can perceive the joining of G-d with humanity…"

(Rabbi Yehudah haLevi, Kuzari 1:35-43)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Monday, January 19, 2015

Miriam, Leader of the Jews

Hi,

"Deuteronomy 24:9 mentions the redemption [from Egypt] specifically regarding Miriam, teaching that whenever the camps travelled, they did so only with Miriam travelling before them."

(Midrash, Sifri Devarim 275)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Why was Miriam named "Puah"?

Hi,

The Sages suggest that the Jewish midwife named "Puah" (Exodus 1:15-21) was actually Miriam, and they offer multiple explanations for how she came about that name:

1. "Puah is Miriam. Why is she called Puah? Because she cooed (puah in Hebrew)."
(Talmud, Sotah 11b)

2. "Alternatively, she spoke (puah) with Divine inspiration, saying, 'My mother will give birth to a son who will save the Jews.'"
(Talmud, Sotah 11b)

3. "She was named Puah for she cried (puah) for her brother, as in Exodus 2:3-9."
(Midrash, Sifri, Behaalotcha 78)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Legislating competition

Hi,

"Rav Huna said: If an alley resident establishes a mill, and another alley resident establishes one beside him, the former is legally able to prevent this, saying, 'You are interrupting my livelihood.'"

(Talmud, Bava Batra 21b)

Note: Mordechai Bava Batra 516 explains that this is a closed alley, and the earlier mill is near the closed end, with the new mill moving in near the open end.

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Eating before prayer

Hi,

"And Rabbi Yosi, son of Rabbi Chanina cited Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov: What is the meaning of Vayikra 19:26, 'You shall not eat upon the blood'? Do not eat before you pray for your blood.


"[And] Rabbi Yosi, son of Rabbi Chanina cited Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov: One who eats and drinks and then prays – regarding him Melachim I 14:9 says, 'You have thrown Me after your body [geivecha].' Do not read it as geivecha [your body], but gei'echa [your arrogance]. Gd says: After this one demonstrated arrogance, then he accepted the monarchy of Heaven!"

(Talmud, Berachot 10b)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Was the attack on the Rambam connected to the Burning of the Talmud in Paris?

Hi,

"In 1232 or 1233, anti-Maimunists in Montpellier handed the more philosophical books of Maimonides over to local friars present to eradicate heresy; the mendicants then burned these texts. The papal court‘s interest in rabbinic texts boded ill for the Jews, and this precedent made it all the easier for Gregory to take a jaundiced view of the Talmud a few years later. According to [Yitzhak] Baer, the 1240 Debate was, at least in part, an outgrowth of earlier inquisitorial activities.

"However, the connection between the Maimonidean controversy and the 1240 Debate is far from clear. In all the papal literature surrounding the 1240 Debate and the subsequent burning of the talmuds, the earlier burning of Maimonidian books goes unmentioned. Association between the two Jewish book-burnings is largely absent in contemporary Jewish literature as well. Three separate works, all written in response to the Debate and the subsequent burning of rabbinic texts, failed to mention the Maimonidean controversy or to connect it with the burning of the Talmuds…

"In fact, only one source supports the relationship between the Maimonedian controversy in southern France and the Paris debate and ultimate destruction of hundreds of Talmud manuscripts. Writing some fifty years after the burning of the Talmud (or thereabouts), the pro-Maimunist Rabbi Hillel of Verona writes that 'forty days did not pass from the burning of [Maimonides‘s] works until that of the Talmud…and the ashes of the Talmud were mixed with those of [Maimonides‘s overtly philosophical works which were handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities,] the Guide for the Perplexed and the Book of Knowledge, since there is still ash at the site.'


"Given the tendentious nature of this source, Baer‘s claim that the Maimonidian controversy set a precedent for subjecting rabbinic texts to inquisitorial authorities in 1240 is highly tenuous. Hillel‘s immediate pro-Maimonidian bias aside, there are historical issues of concern here as well, matters of time and place. It was not forty days, but approximately ten years, between the confiscation of Maimonides‘s writing and the burning of the Talmud. Furthermore, Hillel‘s vivid and evocative imagery of the mixing of the ashes of Maimonidean and Talmudic books notwithstanding, his words in no way comport with the facts; Maimonides‘ writing was burned in Montpellier, the Talmud in front of the Church of Notre Dame. Doubtless Hillel was aware of these discrepancies, and chose to connect the two burnings for rhetorical purposes. Hillel‘s letter cannot be taken at face value, as Baer would have it."

(Dr. Saadia Eisenberg, Reading Medieval Religious Disputation, pp. 98-102)

Have a good day,
Mordechai

Monday, January 12, 2015

On the burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1240

Hi,

"[T]he 1240 Debate represented a turning point in the history of the relations between Ashkenazi Jewry and Latin Christendom. An impressive event attended by an imposing array of dignitaries, this debate offered an opportunity for broad public display of new argumentation. While Donin‘s specific argumentation does not seem to have served as a model for other formal debates – Pablo Christiani, the Christian protagonist in the disputations in Barcelona in July 1263 and in Paris 1270, did not follow Donin‘s line of argumentation – the very assertion that the Church had the right to confiscate, examine, and destroy Jewish literature – specifically the Talmud – set a new tone for Christian-Jewish relationships in centuries to come…


"The clerical court found the Talmud guilty as charged and condemned it to flames. The Jews managed to forestall implementation of the sentence, but after a number of delaying machinations, twenty or twenty-four wagonloads of talmudic manuscripts – probably ten to twelve thousand volumes – were burned in Paris in the Place de Grève (the execution site which symbolized medieval French justice) over the course of one and a half days in 1242. The loss of books and resulting disruption of study among Jews contributed to the decline of the Jewish schools in northern France. Equally demoralizing for northern French Jewry was the vision of the Talmud, a symbol of Jewish history, accomplishment, tradition, values, and religion, going up in flames. From a long-range point of view Jews in Christian lands were now put in the position of having to respond to challenges to Talmudic law, ideology and literature proffered by antagonistic Christians, challenges which continued into the modern era."

(Dr. Saadia Eisenberg, Reading Medieval Religious Disputation pp. 2, 13-14)

Have a good day,
Mordechai

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed throughly in the Torah? Part 8 of 8

Hi,

"When Gd wished to give the Torah to humanity, to publicize His mitzvot and His religious laws and prohibitions via His prophets throughout the world, as in (Shemot 9:16), 'In order to tell of My Name in all the land.' He created great signs, which are recorded throughout the Torah, until these caused people to believe in the prophecies of the prophets and the creation of the world… 

"And He did not transport them from matters of this world, with reward and punishment. And he continued thus until these cornerstones were strengthened and held as true for the flow of generations, and no doubt remained in the prophecies of the prophets and the creation of signs. And then the prophets told us that which Gd had told them, of resurrection of the dead, for [then] it was easy to accept this."

(Rambam, Maamar Techiyat haMeitim (Statement on the Resurrection of the Dead))

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed throughly in the Torah? Part 7 of 8

Hi,

"The material rewards mentioned in the words of this covenant could not have included any spiritual promises, for these promises included the entire nation. Bountiful rain, the blessing of the crops, victory over foes and other items mentioned here include the entire nation… But spiritual rewards are only for each Israelite individually. Regarding material benefits, the world or the city or the nation is judged with its majority… "

(Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel to Vayikra 26:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed throughly in the Torah? Part 6

Hi,

"Early idolaters promised great material success and benefits… And when He wished to make us complete in the truth of His faith, Gd came and gave us His Torah and prohibited us from those types of service, and so He needed to say [that there would be material rewards], lest one think that in halting those types of service, the material benefits would also be lost, as was said by the early ones and as the accursed women said, 'Since we ceased to burn offerings for the queen of the heavens, and to pour libations for her, we have lost all. (Yirmiyah 44:18)' It would not be so. Just the opposite – by distancing ourselves from those types of service, greater and greater benefits and successes, without measure, would flow upon them under the supervision of Gd."

(Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel to Vayikra 26:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed throughly in the Torah? Part 5

Hi,

"The early ones, all of the seed of Adam and Noach's descendants, other than special individuals like Shem, Ever and Avraham, served the stars and denied Divine supervision of individual human beings. Those who believed in an eternal world followed them, and thought that Divine influence was entirely automatic, and nothing of its nature would change due to Divine wish... 

"Therefore, when Gd wished to purify Israel He arranged before them the deeds they would perform, to educate them [to know] that this world was created from total nothingness, and all of this came from Gd, in accordance with His Will and not automatically, and that He could alter nature at will, and that there were deeds Gd desired and deeds which angered Him… 

"If Gd had promised spiritual rewards in His covenant of guarding the mitzvot and His Torah, the Children of Israel would not have believed this, for they did not yet believe in Divine supervision! Therefore, He needed to promise them that which they could grasp with their senses, indicating definitively that He was supervising."

(Don Isaac Abarbanel, commentary to Vayikra 26:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Monday, January 5, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed thoroughly in the Torah? Part 4

Hi,

"The third answer [of seven that he presents, from various sources] is that persistence of the spirit, and its reward in accord with its perfection, are inherent in the nature of humanity. Spiritual success [survival?] is not one of the concepts which is received only from Divine religion; the conclusion of sense and logic mandates that Creation and the path of perfection of natural forms should include it, as philosophers have received in their analyses.


"It is known that the promise of the Divine Torah is not that nature should continue in its natural way, for then there would be neither reward nor punishment. All of her promises involve direction by Divine supervision, not the natural order. Therefore this was tied specifically to mitzvah observance and fulfillment, through supernatural miracles."

(Don Isaac Abarbanel to Vayikra 26:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed thoroughly in the Torah? Part 3

Hi,

"In my view, the Torah was given to everyone, and not only to one person. Olam HaBa [the next world] would not be comprehensible to only one in one thousand, for it is deep."

(Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, Commentary to Devarim 32:39)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Why isn't life after death discussed thoroughly in the Torah? Part 2

Hi,

"The first answer [of seven that he presents, from various sources] is that the good and bad mentioned in the passages of the [biblical] covenant are neither reward nor punishment for mitzvot. True reward or punishment would be spiritual, affecting the soul in the world of souls, and reward for mitzvot is not in this world. The Torah did not want to mention reward for mitzvot and their true punishment, so that one would serve his Creator altruistically, not due to expectation of punishment."

(Don Isaac Abarbanel to Vayikra 26:1)

Have a great day,
Mordechai