starwolf: Youre opinion about not having to take the days as days was rejected by all the Rishonim, as all of them who discuss this, particularly Rashi and Ramban, says a day is a day.
Not that thats a tremendous chidush. If a day isnt a day then maybe a mountain isnt a mountain, a desert isnt a desert, Tefillin arent Tefillin, and Shabbos isnt Shabbos. The whole idea is silly.
Rav Sadiah never said such a thing. That’s a distortion of his position. See it inside. What Rav Sadiah did say has no bearing on any of the issues we are discussing.
Rav Sadiah did not say all methods of direct and indirect proofs are sufficent to reinterpret the Torah. And surely he did not say scientific evidence is reason. Neither Rav Saadiah or anybody eles ever said such a thing. Your senses are what you can feel and taste and touch such that it becomes impossible for it not to be so.
Scientific evidence is not that. There is a margin of error in these things that has been proven time and time again in the past. Especially since there are other explanations, such as the “world was created old” idea that explains things just fine. Never mind that more often than not, the “proofs” start with the asusmption that the world was NOT created by a creator.
That is a far, far, far cry from the touch-and-taste first-hand sensory intuitive proof that Rav Saadiah mentioned.
In addition, Rav Saadiah never said that your senses are the only factor involved in assessing the acceptability of your interpretation. Rav Saadiah was a rishon, and he was talking about interpreting the Torah in an acceptable, reasonable manner, using all the yegiah and ameilus that one uses to interpret any difficult passage. He is saying that your senses can be invoked to determine correct pshat in the Torah but he did not say that satisfying your senses is the only requirement for an acceptable pshat. Rav Saadiah did not say that you can interpret the Torah – allegorically or literally – in a way that contradicts our Torah shebal peh, Mesorah, or the Halachah, for instance, just because you cannot think of a pshat that agrees with the Mesorah. So even if theoretically something in the Torah would go against our senses, we would have to interpret the Torah according to the halachic and hashkafic due process. If we are unable to think of a pshat that squares with torah shebal peh, then we simly do not know the pshat. Not a big deal. There are a lot of difficult passages in the Torah. And as Rav Chaim Brisker said: “It is better to remain with a good question than to give a bad answer.”
Plus, if you notice, Rav Saadiah said not only that you may reinterpret a posuk if it contradicts simple logic and intuition, which is not justification for reinterpreting the Torah here, Rav Sadiah also says that license to reinterpret comes if the posuk seems to contradict rabbinic tradition.
So avoiding an absolute logical and intuitive impossibility is one reason to reinterpret, but contradicting rabbinic tradition is another.
So even if you have a posuk that meets Rav Sadiahs criterion of being against basic logic and sensory facts, by reinterpreting it in a way that contradicts rabbinic tradition you have not follwoed Rav Sadiah. All you have done is traded one impossibilitiy for another, which is not what Rav Saddiah is allowing.
To fulfill Rav Sadiah, youd have to reinterpret the posuk in a way that squares with Rabbinic tradition. If you cant, then you simply must say “I dont know.”
The requirement to believe Torah MiSinai includes of course, not only Torah shebiksav but Torah shebaal peh. That includes Midrashim. However, Agados can be interpreted not literally. Rav Saadia Gaon writes that an Agada can be interpreted as Mesholim in 4 instances: If it contradicts reality, reason, Gemara or Rabbinic tradition. The Ramchal, in Maamar HaAgadta also writes that some Agados are mesholim. (See also Radak Shmuel I end of Ch. 28). Not accpeting a Maamr Chazal is not accpetable – but to reinterpret it in a way that makes it more palatable is OK.
Theoretically, that is. In order to interpret any Chazal – Halachah or Agada – you need to benefit of Rabbinic tradition throughout the ages. If the Rishonim considered an Agada literal, you would be fooling yourself by saying that it is not. They surely had the same measure of common sense as we do, and so if they were not bothered by the credulity of a specific statement of Chazal, we should not be, either.
Another thing: There are people who refuse to accept what seems to them incredulity even in Pesukim of the torah and they therefore interpret them allegorically. That is Apikorsus for sure. And to say that well, I will trust the Torah and the prophets but not Chazal makes no sense. Chazal didnt make up stories. But rather the Agada was said, sometimes, as a Moshol. But to know when it is a Moshol and when it is literal is as difficult as properly interpreting any Torah passage. And here, too, the same logic that tells you the literal meaning of the CHazal is hard ot accept also tells you in even stronger tones, that we are nothing but foolish to reject the opinions of our Rishonim, who understood both reality and Chazal much better than we do.
I have a better idea, then, for such cases, when you come acorss such a Chazal. Invoke Rav CHaim Brisker’s dictums: “Fun a kasha shtarbt mir nisht”. You wont die from a [an unanswered] question. And “S’iz besser to beiben by a kasha vi tzu zogen a krumer teretz” – “Its better to remain with a quesiton than to have the wrong answer.”
So say simply, “I dont understand this Chazal.” You dont have to interpret it any way at all. Maybe one day youll see something in a sefer or someone will explain it. In the meantime, there is no need to jump to conclusions that our predecesors did not reach.
BTW in a kuntres put out on Birkas Hachamah entitled ‘Tizrach Hashemesh’, a medrash that says ‘lo nivroh leho’ir elah galgal hachamoh bilvad – the Zohar in Parshas Veyakhel (reish-tes-vav) ‘delais nehorah leseharoh elah nehora di’shimshoh’ – this fits exactly with what was discovered about the moon, that it has no light of its own, and that it receives light from the sun – it only looks like it’s shining by itself. chalk this one up to the list of things chazal would have had no way of knowing without the torah being from hashem.
(reposted from elsewhere)