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Made you look, made you look!
Ok, so I’m standing and listending to haftara today, and it is about when elisha the navi revived the boy from the dead.
And I’m thinking: Back then, they couldn’t tell if somoene was dead or in a coma. So probably he was just in a coma.
Then, I realized I was being stupid. It isn’t any harder for G-d to revive someone from the dead than from a coma. So today, we can tell the difference, and maybe G-d would want to do a lesser miracle. But, (even according to my idea that) they couldn’t tell the difference, there would be no reason for G-d to make it a coma over dead!
It is the same thing for G-d.
See, these people run around trying to make scientific sense out of miracles. Oooh, we’ll figure out how kriyas yam suf could have happened- who cares? Do you think it is harder for G-d to split yam suf in one way than in another?
On this topic, I wonder the following: Today, we know that things are made out of atoms, because we can see them or detect them. But, 200 years ago they didn’t know, because they couldn’t see or detect them. So I wonder; was stuff really made out of atoms 200 years ago?
I have no reason to think that there were atoms 200 years ago any more than to think there weren’t. G-d might have wanted to have atoms, but I don’t see any reason why or why not.
Popa, you are cut from a different cloth. Perhaps the cloth you are cut from didn’t exist 200 years ago and now it does so Hashem made the CR to accommodate it.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Well, from a purely scientific point of view, you could argue that one either way. 🙂
If a man says something in a forest and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
(not original but a favorite)
Of course the tree makes a sound. Sound is just the vibration caused by the fall whether there is an ear to hear it or not it is there. And Hashem is everywhere and He will hear it so thr question is irrelevant.
Nitpicker, of course he is still wrong, “oaf hashamayim yoleich es hakol”. A women will hear it eventually.
Mod-42: It actually depends on how exactly you define “sound.” And possibly, “metaphysics.”
popa: I’m confused. Your OP seems to be arguing in two different directions. Elucidate?
You start off saying that it’s all the same, even if our perception is altered. By that line of reasoning, yes, matter WAS always composed of atoms, whether we realized it or not. Yes, to God it doesn’t matter, but as previously asserted, OUR perception doesn’t get to define that.
Anyway, the argument is recursive. God constructed the mainframe of “nature,” so however He alters it must also define it. How we see it IS really irrelevant. We don’t really have any say in the matter.
Popa, you are being Mechalel Shabbos with that theory!
Yup, that’s the bottom line. 🙂
Something that gave me an interesting paradigm shift (paraphrased):
If God’s knowledge (for lack of a better term) is infinite, then we know really doesn’t matter – infinity divided by any number, however big, yields such as to make all equal in comparison.
The tree falling in the forest isn’t a scientific question, but a philosophical one. Is there such thing as the world as it is or are there just our perceptions of it?
If indeed it is just as big of a miracle to bring someone from a coma back to life, as it is from death back to life, it is because in essence there is no coma, there is no death, and there is no life. There is only our perception of it. For that matter, there is only my perception of it. Whatever “I” am.
But I generally do not live with this assumption, and therefore I assume there is a “you,” and I assume you don’t either live with this assumption. Which means that I live assuming – at least on some level – that things are real. Ultimately this means that healing someone from a coma is less of a miracle than bringing him back to life.
yitayningwut: True, but it IS also an amusing conundrum from a scientific point of view – and since the OP seems to be chiefly focused on that concern, it makes sense to take it as such.
And again, the premise of OP IS valid – ultimately, our perception really ISN’T all that significant. In a very theoretical way, but still.
OneOfMany –
If nobody is looking at a mirror, is it reflecting anything? Or is it blank until someone looks at it?
yitayningwut: Only if they are so simultaneously. That is very important.
Hashem can do anything. That is a given. In the case of Elisha Hanavi, EVEN if the boy was in a coma and not really dead, or if Elisha actually did CPR for him and breathed life back into him, the fact that this actually works to bring someone back to life who has stopped breathing,IS A MIRACLE. We take this miracle for granted because doctors do it routinely nowadays. But in Elisha’s day, it was not commonplace, and he did not have any fancy resuscitating equipment, only himself and Siyata D’Shmaya,
“If nobody is looking at a mirror, is it reflecting anything? Or is it blank until someone looks at it? “
It is never blank. It always reflects what is in front of it. Whether a human sees the image or not is irrelevant.
This is a scientific fact and does not relate at all to the (pseudo)philosophical discussion above.
I have often tried to determine what exactly happened to the child in this haftarah. I have not been successful.
if you read the language in the haftora – it says – vihinei hanaar meis…. generally speaking meis means dead… you can always argue how do you know the navi wrote with nevuah, but if you believe that the navi was written binevuah, you also believe the naar was dead… hashem did not perform this miracle for the sake of proving that he exists or his strength – he did it for the sake of elisha….
why go back 200 years ago and question the existence of atoms – what makes you think that when i see blue and when you see blue we’re seeing the same color? anything can be questioned but in your case the question defies cold logic…
Popa, why do you stand for the Haftarah?
Actually the premise is wrong. Being in a coma would mean unresponsive, but breathing, warm and with a pulse.
Good job, HaLeivi.
Was wondering when someone was going to get around to this.
But after all, it was Popa’s motzei Shabbos shtick…
It calls the Shunamis an “isha gedola”. How big was she? And why does the Navi need to describe how big she is? In those days being fat was a virtue.
An adam gadol is virtuous but not an isha gedola?
How do you define “nes gadol hayah poh/sham”?
Or Maor hagadol?
Meforshim note that the ben Hatzofis who was revived from dead by Eliahu became the Novi Yonah. What became of the ben Hashunamis?
If you are dead and a novi brings you back, do you bench gomel, mechaye hameisim, or other bracaha?
42: big as influential, a macherteh that would not shy away from the mitzva, or perhaps learned. We learn from her the principle of visiting ones rebbe, (or maharat?) on rosh chodesh and Shabbos. From rosh chodesh, the halacha was extended to regel.
She may have been 7’4 and quite pettite. Gedolah would still describe her.
Luckily we have Rashi to tell us what Gedola refers to.
Do I get an aveira every time I read the slanderous heading?
I don’t usually sit down for davening at all. Or use a siddur.
I basically use a siddur only for:
A. long tachanun.
B. rosh hashana mussaf
C. Yom kippur
D. yontiff mussaf (the korbanos)
E. borchi nafshi
F. rosh chodesh mussaf (what, I don’t know it.)
you have to daven mussaf even if you bring a korban mussaf? I thought it was a replacement for the korban!
Do I get an aveira every time I read the slanderous heading?
if you realize that almost nothing that Popa posts is meant seriously then the answer would be no. Click his CN next to his post above and you’ll see what I mean.
As far as I know, he has only posted 2 serious posts so far since joining the CR and he’s done teshuva for one of them.
And that is my question for you Rabbis out there. Is one allowed to look at a disparaging remark made in jest. (who’s subtitle is ‘tell it to me…’?)
apushatayid:
She may have been 7’4 and quite pettite.
In reference to a women’s size, petite generally means short, (regardless of weight). This term is rather imprecise. Just had to put that put there.
Don’t like the title. If an MO looks at the cr and sees that, he would be turned off totally. Please change the title. It’s a chilul Hashem!
Popa- your assumption is pretty thick. nevua was written al pi Hashe and it says dead. so pashtus he was dead. otherwise your disagreeing with Hashem. dumb dumb.
gefen, I also don’t like it. I tried last night to get then to change it (deleted), I threaded a new thread to that effect (ignored), tried again here (misunderstood).
Now it’s your turn.
Old Man, don’t you think it was an aneurysm? That’s what it sounds like to me — sudden headache and sudden death.
Sunstroke
Zeeskite, if they don’t change it for you, they’re certainly not going to change it for me. In fact just today they deleted one of my threads. It was up for about an hour and it was not even controvertial. Oh well.
Maybe get your mommy to yell at them. 😉
Yoish, popa…
literally…lol Very funny PBA!!
Ok…Many times there can also be a scientific explanation. Even if there is, how should we think those gears were set in motion for the ball to roll that way? Of course, Hashem manipluates the world of creation to do His bidding. Scientific explanations dont, by definition, negate the hand of Hashem, even if some people wish to see it that way, c”vs.
you have to daven mussaf even if you bring a korban mussaf? I thought it was a replacement for the korban!
Once one of my teachers asked everyone in the class to say what acpect of the times of Moshiach was their favorite, he didn’t appreciate my responce.
You said that we won’t have to daven, I’m guessing?
No, I said that davening would be shorter.
I never opened this thread before because(sigh,as usual) I didn’t like your title, popa. I opened it now only by mistake, and started reading your post. Anyways, you made me look, so here’s the stupid pennybook u made me buy!
p.s. BTW when no one’s around, trees don’t even fall in forests. They are transported from a vertical position to horizontal by Hashem, in a millisecond the next time someone passes that spot 🙂
oh, also, atoms were always around; ein davar chodosh tachas hashmesh. Now, about that negative, despicable title….
BaalHabboze,
that negative despicable title wasn’t there until a millisecond before you saw it and it disappeared a millisecond after it went off your screen. 🙂
Who said atoms were always round? I think it is mathematically impossible to make certain shapes, like squares, out of round pieces. I’m not aware of any natural squares in nature, so we can’t prove that atoms were round before say, the pyramids.
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