tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post5570049255772089971..comments2024-03-25T16:16:30.872-04:00Comments on YGB - יג"ב: The New Round in the Torah Min Ha'Shamayim ControversyYosef Gavriel Bechhoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10264311760560329892noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-58919647929493200742013-07-24T15:19:58.220-04:002013-07-24T15:19:58.220-04:00Forgive my mixing in with a triviality in this imp...Forgive my mixing in with a triviality in this important discussion, but let's not get distracted about what is an iqar and what is a tafel shebitfeilim. <br />The iqar is that this man is worse than a sheigitz. He wants to inject doubt into the nation of ma'aminim bnei ma'aminim, he wants to kasher kefira, he wants to be a chazir with his beautiful fislach out in front. He should join the WOW on Rosh Chodesh so that the earth could open its mouth and send them all to their well deserved meeting with all the others that claim there were several authors of the Torah. Feh, ptui. I have to get this out of my head. I'm going to the kollel to look at a Mishnas Reb Aharon Chaim Brown brought down.Eliezer Eisenberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16036989084122930226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-77101141115875435842013-07-22T13:18:42.746-04:002013-07-22T13:18:42.746-04:00I do so much of my "Hebrew" reading in E...I do so much of my "Hebrew" reading in English transliteration, I find it easier to remember the spelling of a word if I keep my kafs and my qufs distinct. If I had a way to disambiguate alef and ayin in a manner that isn't even more distracting, I'd do that too!micha bergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11612144735431285113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-33383226850217396852013-07-22T13:09:35.523-04:002013-07-22T13:09:35.523-04:00why do pepole spell Ikkar with a Q like Quiddish o...why do pepole spell Ikkar with a Q like Quiddish or Iqur?? whats wrong with a simple K? . do all PHD's mix up their K's and Q's.<br /><br />Smile its almost Ellul :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-78566216656633660142013-07-22T06:17:47.412-04:002013-07-22T06:17:47.412-04:00... And R NH yesterday (posted on Morethodoxy):
&...... And R NH yesterday (<a href="http://morethodoxy.org/2013/07/21/torah-min-hashamayim-some-brief-reflections-on-classical-and-contemporary-models-guest-post-rabbi-nati-helfgot/" rel="nofollow">posted on Morethodoxy</a>):<br /><br /><i>"2. As is well known Maimonides in his Introduction to the commentary to the Mishna on the Tenth Chapter of Sanhedrin takes a very unequivocal position on this matter. In his famous 8th principle...<br /><br />3. We, today know that this position, while dominant, was not universally held by all rishonim. From the careful study of Ibn Ezra and his supercommentaries such as R. Yosef Tov Elem (Tzfnat Paaneach), and portions of commentaries from some rishonim in Ashkenaz such as R. Yehuda Hahasid we know that alongside the Maimonidean position there were other minority voices in the tradition that went beyond the explicit position of one of the Hazal in Bava Batra (15) that claimed that the last right psukim were written by Joshua (ostensibly in prophetic mode). These rishonim were willing to maintain that other words, phrases, psukim, and small parshiyot were also post-mosaic in origin, introduced into the text by later prophets....<br /><br />4. <b> In dealing with the challenges posed by higher Biblical Criticism, I personally do not adopt this more radical view of revelation</b>...<br /><br />5. Given all this background where does this leaves us today. The vast majority of Orthodox rabbinic leaders and thinkers, both Hareidi and Modern, at least publically, affirm the traditional notion of Torah Min Hashamayim as outlined by the Rambam. In addition, some writers and thinkers go further and maintain that the weight of Jewish history and the “consensus” of rabbinic statements in the last five hundred years have rendered the discussion moot. ,,,<br /><br />6. The more challenging issue is the attitude towards the view that expands and builds upon the view of these medieval rishonim to include wide swaths of the Torah.,,,<br /><br />Given all this, and my general inclusivist inclinations, I would argue that we not write, people who maintain this more radical position, out of traditional Judaism. This is especially the case given the fact that if I were to look at large swaths of Orthodoxy today, there are hundreds of thousands of Jews who believe things about God and His actions, or His emotions and feelings or about prayer to intermediaries or the nature of the sefirot that would clearly put them outside of the pale in the eyes of the Rambam. I, of course, realize that the 8th principle of the Rambam was one of the central points of contention between Orthodoxy and heterodox movements in the last two centuries and thus has greater resonance and emotional power. However, if we are not going to read out of orthodoxy those who directly violate the fifth ikar of the Rambam or his clear words in the Guide to the Perplexed- Section 1:36 than I am reticent to do so in the case of those who do not adopt the Rambam’s formulation in the 8th ikar, especially if they conform to the notion of the Divine origin of the Torah, a principle that has been rejected in-toto by so many modern Jews.</i><br /><br />So, in the past year it went from outside the pale to being insufficient grouns to exclude someone from Orthodoxy.<br /><br />I'm sorry, the world's ending.<br /><br />Sin'as chinam on one side, kefirah on the other. And I walk between them, eyes blurred with tears, plaintively singing to myself, "Veha'iqar, veya'iqar, lo lefacheid, lo lefacheid kelal..." It just isn't working.micha bergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11612144735431285113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-16726698167571159202013-07-22T06:17:23.775-04:002013-07-22T06:17:23.775-04:00This discussion is about how much of the Torah mus...This discussion is about how much of the Torah must one accept as historical.<br /><br />The latest controversy goes well beyond this. Aside from denying yetzi'as Mitzrayim and maamad Har Sinai, he denies that the Torah's specific words are the Creator's. And the sad thing is, this is yielding discussion on various fora of the internet. Not that long ago, a proposal like this would be unquestionably dismissed for the kefirah that it is.<br /><br />R' N Helfgot, last year <br />*Mikra and Meaning: Studies in Bible and Its Interpretation*, page 40:<br /><br /><i>"It is clear that adoption of the theological underpinnings of classical biblical criticism – that is, the notion that the Torah as a composite work written by various human authors in different historical time periods and locales with differing theologies and perspectives and without divine inspiration – is clearly outside the pale of any Orthodox notion of Torah Min HaShamayim. Adoption of such a worldview has no place in an Orthodox religious framework. The adherents of such a position, their personal commitment to observance of mitzvoth notwithstanding, cannot honestly lay claim to any mantle of traditional justification.<br /><br />"The more complex issue relates to people who maintain that the Torah is a composite work from the hand of various human authors in different historical settings, but that these authors were divinely inspired – that is, those who view the Torah as equivalent to the writings of the prophets. This perspective, while arguably not technically rendering one as “denying the divine origin of the Torah” as articulated in the mishna in Sanhedrin (90a), undermines the uniqueness of the Torah in contrast to the rest of the Bible, as well as the uniqueness of the Mosaic prophesy. According to some views in [Ch]azal and some of the Rishonim, belief in the latter is an article of faith, and denial of it potentially shatters the foundation of the entire structure of the binding nature of Torah. There clearly were Rishonim, such as the Sephardic exegete Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Ashkenazic pietistic scholar Rabbi Yehuda HaHasid, who maintained that an isolated section of the Torah was post-Mosaic, a gloss from the pen of a subsequent prophet. However, the notion of the entirely composite makeup of the Torah has no precedent in classical Jewish sources, and it is therefore impossible to term such a theological understanding as Orthodox in any meaningful sense."</i>micha bergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11612144735431285113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11425001.post-53568966951583883612013-07-22T01:50:45.560-04:002013-07-22T01:50:45.560-04:00Is this the same discussion that was included in t...Is this the same discussion that was included in the unpublished version of the collected writings of the Bigdeh Shesh?Reuven Meirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03089160156429119208noreply@blogger.com