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HaLeiVi – I kind of assumed that someone who learned Sefer yetzira and wrote a pirush on it had, in doing so, learned Kabbalah. I never said he was a mekubal. Ditto R’ Crescas.
Derech Hamelech – I never painted you as a conspiracy theorist but you are starting to sound a bit like one…
Haleivi, writersoul: I think it’s the same answer to you both and that is what I’ve kept saying I understood from my Rosh Kollel. The Rambam’s recanting his position does not invalidate his original shitah. Meaning the Yad the Moreh etc are all still Torah to be learned and likewise to be cholek on by those who are capable of that. That is why there is no problem that Rishonim and Achronim still discuss and argue on it.
I can also suggest an answer to your question about the Raavad. Shivim panim L’Torah. There are many minhagim on how to do mitzvos al pi sod that we got through the Arizal. For instance I believe the Arizal is the source of the double hole for tzitzis. That doesn’t mean that there is no sod in using only a single hole, just that it wasn’t part of the Arizal’s Torah, so we don’t know it. Likewise I would say that if the Raavad didn’t see something al pi sod in something the Rambam wrote its because it wasn’t part of his Torah. But I’m sure Moshe Rabeinu could have explained it to him.
Why on earth does recanting not disqualify his original shittah? Unless he was merely mimicking someone else’s shittah- otherwise, if HE thought up the theory and then HE stated it was wrong, WHY would it be a credit to him to say that the position that HE satated was wrong was actually right? It’s making the only value of his learning his name and not his actual opinion- th eonly reason why this shittah is still valid is because it’s the Rambam who said it and not because he felt it was correct. If he’s already said that he thought it was wrong, it’s a disservice to credit him for it.
The third [argument they present]
Just My Hapence, it depends on your Derech Halimud. You can go through the whole thing with the four elements and other ways of categorizing the creation. I would like to believe he did know Kabbala, simply because we know that other Geonim are part of the Shalsheles Kabbala and why would he stand out? However, I doubt Reb Shmuel ibn Chafni was a Mekubal.
writersoul: I think because Rishonim do not learn Torah wrongly. All of their Torah is truth and the only question is what is more subjectively relevant. If we say ????? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ?????, then how much more so their Torah.
By the way, just in case it matters to anyone, my ?earlier post?, was not meant to be a poem. It went through copy and paste on my phone.
What nonsense. Even gedolim are not infallible.
But HE SAID he was WRONG.
By saying he’s that the opinion he thinks is wrong is actually valid, you’re saying he’s wrong.
That’s what I don’t get about the notion that someone- ANYONE- CAN’T be wrong. It means that their own opinion on the matter is discounted.
HaLeiVi: Do we know the Ra’avad was a meukubal? I usually think when early Sephardic Rishonim use the word “Sod” it often does not mean Kaballah in our sense of it.
Whom do you mean? The ibn Ezra uses both ways.
The Raavad is always considered to have been a Mekubal. The Ri Sagi Nahar was his son-in-law. Also, he uses the terminology of Mekubalim. The specific comment on that topic also strongly suggests a Kabbalistic intention.
writersoul: no I am calling it a machlokes Rishonim: the Rambam vs the Rambam.
Raavad was a mekubal and he was certainly a Neoplatonist, like Isaac the Blind/Yitzhak Sagi Nahor. Hence many of the disputes with Rambam the Aristotelian. Rather than appealing to the objective, intellectual deductive process of inquiry and psak (like the Rambam, who appeals to the text for guidance and submits to it), the Raavad believes that charisma guides him and grants a modicum of authority in and of itself. Hence the many references he makes to “Secrets” being revealed to him by the “Ruach haKodesh” in many places, including Hilkhot Lulav 8:5. Raavad believed that a great rabbi [godol] is great because of charisma, and because he embodied “tradition,” and that God may indeed possess a body. Rambam believed that God does not have a body and being a great rabbi is not a source of authority. These are theological matters and either Maimonides or R. Abraham b. David is wrong.
But it isn’t. because he stated he was wrong. Which means that he negated his own previous opinion.
You’re basically respecting the name, not the human being. Because the Rambam said so, it has to be right. But personally, if the Rambam is as great as you say he is (which I obviously won’t doubt) then I’ll trust his judgment as far as whether his OWN opinions are good. I won’t let it come down to what the four-letter acronym said.
Put it this way- let’s say I, a normal eleventh grade (actually almost twelfth-grade– YES!) girl were to give you my opinion on, say, the whole NSA thing. Then, I realized that I changed my mind. My other opinion was ridiculous and wrong, based on information with missing pieces. I said that this new, diametrically opposed opinion was my new opinion and correct, as opposed to the other one. If you said that wow, writersoul is so awesome that she’d never say something wrong, so both of her opinions must be right- I’d be a bit ticked, as I specifically changed my mind, and the judgment that you respect, which decided that my second opinion is right, has already decided that the first is wrong. By saying that both are right, you’re saying that the CONTENT of what I’m saying doesn’t matter, but rather only the person saying it matters.
I’m not actually comparing myself to the Rambam actually- I’m just trying to show how saying that they’re both right is actually a disservice to the Rambam and not a compliment at all.
This doesn’t, incidentally, necessarily mean that I buy into the whole “he-changed-his-mind” business- but even if I did, it wouldn’t make sense.
writersoul: there is a difference between your understanding of whatever the NSA thing is and the Rambam’s understanding of Torah. In the physical world, your theory is either right or wrong. Two opposing opinions can’t be right. That is not true about Torah. When the Rambam wrote the Mishnah Torah, his understanding of Torah was complete, Mishnah Torah is 100% Torah. Then he learned more Torah and he thought up different Torah. The Rambam saying his previous Torah is wrong is the same as the Raavad saying its wrong. It’s a machlokes.
DH: You can’t say that, though, because that’s not a legitimate outlook on Ikkarei Emunah according to the Rambam.
Yes, but you can’t call both the opinion of the Rambam. The opinion of the Rambam is his second, edited opinion. He has already renounced his first opinion.
You’re still separating the person from the name. “The Rambam” is a mystical name to you- “the Rambam” can’t be wrong. but the human being R Moshe bar Maimon can change his mind and renounce his previous shittah.
The first opinion could easily be one of the shivim panim laTorah, but it’s not the opinion of the Rambam. The Rambam changed his opinion.
I think there’s something hashkafically wrong with saying that any human being can’t be wrong. Perfection is Hashem’s realm.
DH: That’s ridiculous. If he was changed his position how could that be a machlokes?
RD: The Ra’avad did not hold that God could be corporeal. He just held that one who does hold that way because of how he reads the Pesukim and Midrashim isn’t an Apikores. There is a massive difference.
Sam2: I don’t understand what you are talking about.
writersoul: I don’t know why you keep talking about the Rambam’s name. It has nothing to do with what his name is and everything to do with what he is: a Rishon. You are right, perfection is only for Hashem. But that doesn’t mean the Rishonim were not malachim. However, that is neither here nor there. Do you agree or disagree that if the Rambam opens a gemarah and learns a topic for 10 hours straight, that whatever conclusions he writes down would be considered Torah? If so, then learning an additional 2 hours and coming to a different conclusion does not negate the existence of the first Torah. You can’t destroy Torah.
SL1: Because the machlokes is between the first Torah he concluded and the second Torah he concluded. If what he wrote at first was Torah (and I hope that it is obvious that it was), then that Torah can’t be negated it exists.
DH: According to the Rambam (in the Moreh) Ikkarei Emunah are immutable. Holding that they can change would be itself a violation of Ikkarei Emunah. Thus, the two Shittahs do not go hand-in-hand.
And writersoul is right and you are just wrong. If the Rambam reaches a conclusion which he then can conclusively prove wrong, then the original Shittah was a mistaken Shittah. If he came to a Shittah based on inaccurate information, then that Shittah is incorrect. That holds true of the Rambam, any other Rishon, or you or me. When he holds of two mutually exclusive Shittos, one is wrong. If the Rambam thinks over a Gemara for a year and reaches a Maskana, and is then Chozer on that Maskana because he didn’t have access to a P’sikta that shows the context of the Gemara, then his Chazarah is saying his original Shittah was based on false information and wrong. So too here.
Also, why do you think the Poskim always say that the Piskei HaRosh is more important than the T’shuvos HaRosh because they came later (maybe I’m backwards?)? Because we care about the Shittos that the people thought of. You can’t have a Machlokes of someone against himself. If he was Chozer then he was Mevatel his earlier Shittah.
Christians believe that God is corporeal. Two theologies cannot be correct at the same time. Either Rambam is right or the Ra’avad is right on this matter. I most certainly would consider one who believed God had a body (like Moses Teiku) a heretic.
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