Who were Moshe's sons? You may be tempted to answer, "Gershom and Eliezer" - but that's not what it says in Bamidbar's census. The answer given by the pesukim sheds light on what makes a good teacher.
Hi, I just listened to the Judaism Demystified podcast on God doing the impossible. Comments were turned off so I'm leaving leaving a comment here instead. I'm not sure I understand how you can make the statement that a person cannot believe in concepts that are impossible to the mind (eg square circle) when Rambam himself posits such things - eg the belief in free will while maintaining divine foreknowledge or even the concept of divine knowledge itself which in yesodei hatorah 2:10 Rambam stated that the mind cannot conceive of God being 3 things which are one (ugh oh!)
Hello! Thank you for listening and commenting. (In the future, feel free to email me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.)
I definitely see how one could read Yesodei ha'Torah 2:10 and think that the Rambam is saying something like a square circle or the trinity. However, if you learn through Shemoneh Perakim Chapter 8 and the Moreh 1:68 (I believe), and understand what he's saying - about knowledge itself and then how it applies to knowledge of God - then you'll see that it's not the same thing. The definition of square contradicts the definition of circle, which is why the mind can't grasp it. In contrast, based on the Rambam's theory of knowledge, one who had perfect knowledge would (for lack of a better term) be identical with the knowledge itself and would BE mind. I'm not pretending I, myself, understand this, but when I was in yeshiva, I had exactly the same question that you did, and my rebbi gave a shiur on it, which allowed me to understand it clearly enough to see that he's not trying "to pull a trinity" (as the kids say these days).
The same is true regarding free will vs. divine foreknowledge. There's absolutely no contradiction to say that God knows what you're going to do and you still have free will. Free will means that you are the cause of your own action. If I throw my shoe into the air and you're watching, you KNOW that the shoe will fall - yet, your knowledge doesn't affect the shoe in any way. The cause of its motion is my throwing it and gravity. The real problem is the other way around: IF we have free will, and we are the cause of our actions, then how can God know what we're going to do? To that answer, the Rambam says that we can't understand how Divine knowledge works. (Others, like the Ralbag, beg to differ.) Still, it's not a square circle because there's no contradiction involved.
I'm under no illusion that what I wrote here EXPLAINS either of the two topics you asked about. My goal is to make a distinction between a concept involving a contradiction and the two concepts the Rambam writes about which, though they are abstract and recondite, don't involve ANY internal contradictions.
Hi, I just listened to the Judaism Demystified podcast on God doing the impossible. Comments were turned off so I'm leaving leaving a comment here instead. I'm not sure I understand how you can make the statement that a person cannot believe in concepts that are impossible to the mind (eg square circle) when Rambam himself posits such things - eg the belief in free will while maintaining divine foreknowledge or even the concept of divine knowledge itself which in yesodei hatorah 2:10 Rambam stated that the mind cannot conceive of God being 3 things which are one (ugh oh!)
הוּא הַיּוֹדֵעַ וְהוּא הַיָּדוּעַ וְהוּא הַדֵּעָה עַצְמָהּ הַכּל אֶחָד. וְדָבָר זֶה אֵין כֹּחַ בַּפֶּה לְאָמְרוֹ וְלֹא בָּאֹזֶן לְשָׁמְעוֹ וְלֹא בְּלֵב הָאָדָם לְהַכִּירוֹ עַל בֻּרְיוֹ
Hello! Thank you for listening and commenting. (In the future, feel free to email me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.)
I definitely see how one could read Yesodei ha'Torah 2:10 and think that the Rambam is saying something like a square circle or the trinity. However, if you learn through Shemoneh Perakim Chapter 8 and the Moreh 1:68 (I believe), and understand what he's saying - about knowledge itself and then how it applies to knowledge of God - then you'll see that it's not the same thing. The definition of square contradicts the definition of circle, which is why the mind can't grasp it. In contrast, based on the Rambam's theory of knowledge, one who had perfect knowledge would (for lack of a better term) be identical with the knowledge itself and would BE mind. I'm not pretending I, myself, understand this, but when I was in yeshiva, I had exactly the same question that you did, and my rebbi gave a shiur on it, which allowed me to understand it clearly enough to see that he's not trying "to pull a trinity" (as the kids say these days).
The same is true regarding free will vs. divine foreknowledge. There's absolutely no contradiction to say that God knows what you're going to do and you still have free will. Free will means that you are the cause of your own action. If I throw my shoe into the air and you're watching, you KNOW that the shoe will fall - yet, your knowledge doesn't affect the shoe in any way. The cause of its motion is my throwing it and gravity. The real problem is the other way around: IF we have free will, and we are the cause of our actions, then how can God know what we're going to do? To that answer, the Rambam says that we can't understand how Divine knowledge works. (Others, like the Ralbag, beg to differ.) Still, it's not a square circle because there's no contradiction involved.
I'm under no illusion that what I wrote here EXPLAINS either of the two topics you asked about. My goal is to make a distinction between a concept involving a contradiction and the two concepts the Rambam writes about which, though they are abstract and recondite, don't involve ANY internal contradictions.