Category: rambam
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Ehad HaAm and Rambam
I recently discovered that Echad Ha’Am wrote a very interesting booklet in memory of Maimonides’ 700th yahrzeit. In it he espouses the ‘rational http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifRambam’ and claims that Rambam’s faith was always guided primarily by philosophy. He shows a greater familiarity with a wider range of Rambam texts than most yeshiva students now – in keeping… Read more
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Science and Chazal – three approaches
No chidushim in this post, but just another interesting example of different approaches to aggadata. I was learning Ein Yaakov with my daughter on Shabbat, and we came to the passage in Yoma 20b that speaks about the noise that the sun makes as it travels across the sky during the day: ת”ר אלמלא גלגל… Read more
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Rambam on Omnipotence
Further to last night’s shiur, here is the full quote from Rambam regarding G-d’s Omnipotence. Rambam clearly writes that G-d is bound by the laws of logic, and that anyone who denies this is only doing so because of religious conviction rather than based on philosophical reasoning.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifIt is from Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim)… Read more
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Rabbi Abahu and Rambam’s 3rd Ikkar
I came across three interesting statements for Rabbi Abahu this week, which seem to point to the fact that he does not agree with Rambam’s third principle – that we must deny any kind of physicality from G-d. I was learning the (Israeli) parshat hashavua which speaks about the service of the Cohen Gadol on… Read more
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The Nature of G-d
I gave a shiur last night. this shiur is l’ilyi nishmat Menya bas Hertzel. I discuss two approaches in the Rishonim about how a person should come to understand G-d. Kuzari, Rav Sadiah Gaon, Rambam and others hold that the only way to understand G-d is to use rational thought to investigate His nature. Anyone… Read more
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Reason that Chicken is considered Meat
Often people are confused about why the Rabbis forbade chicken (birds) with milk – why were they concerned about chicken more than fish, or pareve vege-burgers? The usual answer given is that ‘it looks like meat’ which is not really a good answer, because many things look like meat, and many things don’t. Rambam (Hilchos… Read more
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Demons and rationalism
Someone asked me last week about how to view a machlokes in hashkafic reality. For example, there is a disgreement about whether reincarnation is true or not (or more specifically, whether it is an acceptable Jewish belief or not). R’ Saadiah Gaon, and others, are explicit that there is no reincarnation. The AriZal, the Ramchal… Read more
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Rambam Yomi
Another one of the ‘yomi’ cycles was started by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe – Rambam Yomi. There are three cycles, learning one mitzvah daily, learning one chapter of Mishna Torah daily, and learning three chapters of Mishna Torah daily. The latest cycle of three chapters began on Friday with the introduction. I went through the… Read more