There's an important part of that footnote that you didn't bring, he quotes Rabbi Meiselman statement that this only applies to astronomy, and then he says about that statement יש שלא מצאו הכרח לזה (it sounds like he argues).
Either way, the reason why this sefer is unproblematic is precisely because of the statement you quoted "However, since we find that Rebbi was willing to accept an alternate view that seemed more correct, later chachamim had no reluctance to state that the assumption of chachmei Yisrael that the rakia is a dome and the sun travels through windows in the rakia has been disproven." He's approaching it from a serious halacha perspective, not from a kefira perspective. This is similar to what R' Beinish did with the kezayis.
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
That's like asking, if the Rambam was wrong about y'mei niddah and y'mei zivah, why on earth would we think he is correct about thousands of other halachos he paskened? Why can't we moderns just argue on the Rambam whenever we have a difficulty with him?
We believe in the Torah sh'bal Peh. We trust Chazal. We have a *very strong* assumption that the maskana of Chazal was correct, even though we know there are thousands of places where members of Chazal felt other members of Chazal were wrong. There is nothing special about that Gemara in Pesachim over the thousands of other machlokes in Shas where we decide one side seems correct.
Also, why is the path of the sun "basic"? There is nothing at all basic about it. Maybe you mean compared to more modern discoveries like electromagnetism.
We are talking about knowledge of the natural world. Why would Chazal possess obscure knowledge about things such as zoology, regarding which the Torah says nothing, if they didn't know that the sun does not go behind the sky at night, which is something much more basic, and about which they believed the Torah does give information?
Again, your logic makes no sense. It's like asking, why would Rava possess knowledge about obscure halachos of stam yeinam (of which the Torah says nothing), if he was once wrong about something in Yevamos? You also never explain why knowing about the path of the sun is so basic.
"That's like asking, if the Rambam was wrong about y'mei niddah and y'mei zivah, why on earth would we think he is correct about thousands of other halachos he paskened?"
Because those other halachos aren't dependent on the metzius.
"There is nothing special about that Gemara in Pesachim over the thousands of other machlokes in Shas where we decide one side seems correct."
This is actually very different. It's Chazal arguing against the chachmei umos haolam and a lone Tanna speaks up tells Chazal they are wrong and the chachmei umos haolam are right, based on what their arguments (which were also wrong, but whatever).
"Because those other halachos aren't dependent on the metzius."
That's not a logical response. We think Rambam was wrong about how he learned Gemara X. We think he misunderstood the Gemara, he misunderstood what the Tannaim or Amoraim were saying. Why in the world would he be correct about how he learned countless other Gemaras?
"This is actually very different"- No it's not. The only difference is the goyim are involved. It's not different in terms of Chazal saying Chazal was wrong, which happens thousands of times in Shas.
Um, yes it is. You basically ignored what I wrote and said there's no difference.
A machlokes about how to understand a gemara is very different from misunderstanding physical reality. For a sevara, there are usually two sides which have elements of truth to them (heim-ve-heim, etc.). But
when the Rambam says the size of the moon is about 1/45 of the size of the Earth, or when he says the planets' orbit make noises, we ignore it because it's wrong. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand.
Uh, no. There are not "two sides" to what Rava meant when he said halacha X. If we maintain the Rambam misunderstood the statement of Rava and ruled based on that misinterpretation, he is wrong, plain and simple (unless you want to get mystical, God forbid for a rationalist).
When the Rambam says the moon is 1/45 of the size of the Earth, you ignore it because you think it's wrong independently. Not because the Rambam was wrong elsewhere about something completely different.
Otherwise you have a strong assumption the Rambam is right, despite that he got y'mei ziva wrong, or the size of the moon wrong. Slifkin's usage of Pesachim 94 is just totally ridiculous. He could have used any machlokes in Shas to "prove" that Chazal could possibly be wrong.
You seem to be asleep. There's an adage about new ideas. I think I encountered it in both Torah and other sources. That new ideas go through three stages. First, they are opposed. Then they are eventually accepted. Finally, they are seen as obvious—why give credit to whoever said them; we knew it all along! And proofs—who needs proofs?!?
Here we're starting the 20th year since your ban, and you lost track of what your opposition had said then. Or more specifically, what they had written. Basically, Schmeltzerism. Back then it would have been a huge deal if even one Gemara showed Chazal scientifically fallible even once, and would have knocked Schmeltzerism out. Over time many forgot about you and your Cherem and we don't know what they're thinking nowadays. And there are those who maintained interest. And (with your assistance that they forgot by now) their eyes slowly opened to Chazal's fallibility being a more legitimate possibility. So today you cite Pesachim 94 and they say, oh, we knew it all along.
(There may be people who knew it all along. But they weren't there back then telling the Machrimim that they went too far.)
"So you’d think that a new book on a topic of Torah and science, which is endorsed by Rav Miller and cites Rabbi Meiselman to legitimize one of its most crucial points, would be something that I detest. But in fact, I think it’s amazing."
"The answer is that this book says it in such a way as to make it almost unassailable. The reason why the book can do this is that it restricts itself to mentioning this in the context of one very, very specific topic: the sun’s path at night."
Amazing. Just amazing. You know what's even more amazing? BMG has numerous copies of 'tractate pesachim' on their shelves. You can literally walk into their batei midrash and open up to the 'folio' where it says chazal admitted to being wrong. Isn't that shocking???
....Seriously, this post is such click-bait, I was half expecting one of those ads for miraculous anti-aging cream to start popping up.
It's not so simple. There is ONE Rishon who learns differently. That is Rabbeinu Tam quoted in shitta mekubetzes (Ketubot 11b?) -Check the Gilyon haShas in Pesachim.
"You can literally walk into their batei midrash and open up to the 'folio' where it says chazal admitted to being wrong. Isn't that shocking???"
My response In other words:
Wrong.
It's not a mefurash Gemara. I cannot understand why you did not understand. Rabbeinu Tam says that the chachamim did not concede, but were just admitting that at first glance the other opinion appeared more correct.
It's what you will hear if walk into BMG and pull a Gemara off the shelf...
You're nit-picking. The gemara is mefurash. Rabeinu Tam explains the gemara d'lo k'pshuto. It's a chiddush.
This post is click-bait because from the headline and opening you'd think it was some sort of closely guarded secret that chazal ever admitted they were wrong. It's not. Rabbi Meiselman admits it. Artscroll admits it. And Slifkin *admits they admit it* right in the post. Turning rabbi Notis's citing of that point into some sort of 'aha!' moment with a 'Mission Impossible' meme is about as click-baity as you can get.
For goodness' sakes. Do you really not know what the yeshiva world is like? R. Meiselman only admits it after spending endless pages trying to avoid and obfuscate it. The standard line in yeshivos is "but Rabbeinu Tam... but Maharal..." The 36 Gedolim who signed against my book all declared that it's heretical.
"For goodness' sakes. Do you really not know what the yeshiva world is like?"
I know very well what it's like. I'm actually a part of it, not an embittered former member of it. Your attempt to dramatize the utterly prosaic is exactly what click-bait is. It would be like Yosef Mizrachi writing "NATAN SLIFKIN ADMITS CHAREIDIM WERE RIGHT TO BAN HIS BOOKS BECAUSE HE REALLY IS A DANGEROUS HERETIC," and then following that up with a link to a post by you where you make some generic statement about how every community gets to decides what constitutes a heretic, etc etc.
"R. Meiselman only admits it after spending endless pages trying to avoid and obfuscate it. "
Whatever that might mean. Are you saying he was hoping people wouldn't read that far? If not, what on earth are you saying?
I'm sure it's not picking when that was and still is the most common way to learn in the Yeshivos!
The reason for this: if Chazal indeed had a mesorah, they could not possibly be wrong.
If they admit they were mistaken, it tells us they did not have a mesora. Rather, they were using their G-d given intellect just like we do. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
Why does every מאמר חז"ל need to be a mesora from Sinai or divinely transmitted? Who is really pushing this agenda? Chazal themselves clearly state it is a mesora when it is. Enough for now. I don't advise you to go into it if you already agree; just be aware that there are people who cannot accept this Gemara k'pshuto.
Your content was never the main issue. It was your confidence and attitude. The I know better than the Rabbis and there are two camps which allows me to deny the Rabbis is a pretty big issue. Not because you're right and we're scared of exposure to you because it undermines our 'fake mesorah.' Rather because you're wrong but its so complex that those who are ignorant on these matters should best leave it to the experts as so not to lead other layman astray.
No one has a problem saying that Chazal didn't know Riemann geometry or the mathematics of the gauge quantum field theory. It isn't such a stretch that they didn't know how astronomy works scientifically. But the mesorah has taught us something along the lines that the way we perceive the world with our eyes has deep meaning which is what matters to the true reality of nature, the spiritual essence. I barely understand these things but if you don't trust that the Gr'a and Ramchal and Arizal understood these essences, why do you believe in anything our mesorah taught us?
It's so funny how people constantly insist that the Gedolim meant things other than what they explicitly said that they mean. And when they claim that rabbis who don't even read English were actually only opposed to the way that I said things.
If I'm wrong I retract and I apologize. I have no doubt that there were many annoying kanaim who should've thought twice. I hate bans, especially yours. But I know for a fact that many gedolim in America felt the way I described.
Ok, so if you think that they had no problem with the content, then clearly they have been misunderstood! So let them come out and say so. Better yet, let them write a book with the same content but in the correct "tone," and they will help so many people!
Actually let me be more clear: your content is wrong. You say that chazal were wrong. they weren't. They were only wrong scientifically. But from a Torah perspective that hardly matters. You think it matters greatly. And you are correct. IF you don't understand what the Torah is about. But how do we tell someone who doesn't know what the Torah is about to wait and ask questions later? If we say not to ask her thinks we're close minded. If we encourage the questions and he discovers some of these strong ones too early, he's likely to lose his appreciation for chazal. Which is ultimately what our beliefs are based on. Our unparalleled ethos. So what the gedolim try to do is teach that chazal were superhumanly great, which they were, and when am individual has a question, we deal with it on an individual basis in which we can still have hope that we can relay the proper ethos.
What you did is say that there needs to be answers for those struggling and you went behind their backs and in your small minded world you thought you were helping. I'm not saying some people weren't helped by your approach. But from a bigger picture perspective, is there any other way other than to deal with you?
Best mashal is a classroom with a usher with a certain goal one kid thinks he knows better. What do you do with that kid? What is he's a very persuasive writer with thousands of followers?
I'm not saying what happened was okay on a personal level. Maybe they should have left it to a different folks for different strokes and if some want to get it wind so be it. But I'd your were in their shoes, can you blame them?
" They were only wrong scientifically. But from a Torah perspective that hardly matters."
That's not what the banners claimed. Not only did they assert that Chazal weren't "wrong scientifically, they also stated that the denial of Chazal's expertise in science was heresy. Thus it did matter from a Torah perspective.
It appears that your conflating your agenda with the banners'.
I keep seeing commenters in this forum talking for the Gedolim and offering reasons for them. What they are doing is attributing their own personal views to the Gedolim. So much for Daas Torah.
Well, you guys have different missions. I can't talk for anyone but I'd say these topics aren't necessarily meant for public consumption because while chazal may have erred, what they said is still true 100% as they were describing a spiritual essence. To teach that they were infallible is a much more important message which stays true even after understanding the later nuance that they erred in scientific matters. For most people the things you wrote are way further from the truth than the flipside.
The rishonim who didn't have a mesorah, correct. but they were wrong too, not chazal. And you can cry and make up two camps when in reality they were a step removed from our camp and in the step they didn't take, they were wrong we don't make wrong mainstream and we teach those kinds of things to people who are ready. From my understanding, you still don't know what spiritual essence are. You still call them esoteric manipulations or something like that when in reality they are really about getting close to God...
Doesn’t every religious tradition (really any tradition of values / customs / commitments) make a claim to deep meaning? Isn’t that the whole reason adherents are commanded to discuss and learn them and pass them on? The question is whether it originates from human desire and need, or from something “higher.”
Every religion seems to privilege its own way of seeing, it’s own “deep” lessons, as the truth that is preferred. Can we appreciate that sociological reality, as students of religion.?
This is a big nothingburger. The earth's path at night is the one easy place to admit Chazal erred - only because Chazal tell us just that. It's also the exception that proves the rule that everywhere else we assume they didn't err.
You also quote RMM as admitting Chachamim were wrong in this case - so what's the big chidush?
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
Why on earth would they be incorrect? Here's the difference between you and me - you assume they're incorrect until proven otherwise, while I assume the opposite.
I think that modern science has proven that spontaneous generation does not happen, that lions are not pregnant for three years, that bats do not lay eggs, etc. Why would Chazal possess obscure knowledge about zoology, regarding which the Torah says nothing, if they didn't know that the sun does not go behind the sky at night, about which they believed the Torah does give information?
The gemarah says they were wrong, so the position is only a haava mina. What you're suggesting is like asking how could any sage every be right about anything if he ever held a position that was disproven at some point.
The items you mentioned are fair game for discussion - but to somehow prove that Chazal were wrong about them simply because there is an admission of a mistake in ONE place is just ridiculous.
It wasn't a "hava amina." The Gemara is not a person. It was the view of numerous earlier sages, which they supported from pesukim and presented elsewhere in Shas.
It's effectively the same thing. It is a position that is not held at the end. Doesn't matter that there were sources and pesukim. You can have that in any hava amina too. Are you playing dumb?
Hey! Don't give away Lakewood's secret! We don't need another book banned!
Honestly, whether the author believes what he quoted from Rabbi Meiselman or not, makes no difference. He did a great political move by doing so, making his un-apologetic sefer look mainstream.
I agree with Rav Chaim Zimmerman on this point . Chachma bgoyim taamin. Chazal we're busy learning Torah. They didn't spend years doing scientific research. They relied on the best science of the times. If they applied a pasuk to some scientific matter it was just an esmachta balma. Applying sod Hashem lyireiov to mean chazal knew all science is wishful thinking and ignorance of both science and Torah.
I flipped through this book, and it is clear that there is essentially there is no basis for waiting 72 minutes after Shabbos (in the US). The book also quotes - I believe Rav Shlomo Fisher - in a response to someone shocked that the Rabbeinu Tam could be wrong: "It's simple - he was shlugged up!"
(Maybe it's ok if you say they were wrong in a yeshivish way 😉)
Rabbeinu Tam never said '72 minutes' for the US. Not sure if he said 72 minutes at all. By the way, until recently there was no way of measuring 72 minutes accurately. Especially after sunset.
And they used a Casio to calibrate the sand timers? Yep, every Jewish home had a 72 minute sand timer. And a luach telling them when sunset was to start turning the sand timer. 😀
I haven't moved on. They had no way of calculating 72 minutes from sunset. I stand by that, and you have not rebutted it. It didn't matter. They didn't use minutes, they didn't use degrees, they used their eyes. But nitpick all you like on the use of the term 'Jewish home', as if that is the main point.
And by the way, real evidence for sand timers only dates them reliably to 1300s to 1400s and later. If they were in widespread use before then, historians would bring that date earlier.
"Sundials and water clocks were first used in ancient Egypt from 1500 BC and later by the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Chinese. Incense clocks were being used in China by the 6th century. In the medieval period, Islamic water clocks were unrivalled in their sophistication until the mid-14th century. The hourglass, invented in Europe, was one of the few reliable methods of measuring time at sea."
Ancient people weren't dumb or unsophisticated. They lacked certain technology, but keeping time isn't something you need an app on a smartphone to do.
Maybe historians don't bring the date earlier because they don't know.
Your blind emuna in historians is touching.
The main thing is, Jewish homes are not the issue. The question is the Halacha. If people didn't have a way to figure it out, maybe they found a workaround, maybe they were machmir. The Halacha doesn't change much.
And he said 4 mil when and where exactly? Another good question. Are you aware that in many parts of the world in the Summer it is bright daylight well before 72 minutes before haneitz?
Lfi Ho'ofek is your eyes, man. Nobody uses 72 minutes fixed l'kulah, by the way. I can assure in Radin in the peak of the Summer the sky was very bright 72 minutes after sunset. You think all the Rabneinu Tam followers made havdoloh?
Yes. See above. 72 minutes fixed in all places for every day of the year is wrong. You can verify this with your own eyes. No seforim, da'as torah, rabbis or spherical geometry needed. You just need to know what a star is. And remember, don't put the cart before the horse. These zemanim are supposed to be emperical. All this minute stuff came later. (A bit like kezayis is supposed to be a minimum shiur achilah and cannot possibly be a shiur which means you have to stuff yourself to the maximum)
That's correct. Everything is in the way it is said, not necessarily what is said.
It remains one of the funniest things on the Jewish internet that our host, the one and only NS, is STILL stuck in this rut, twenty years later, and STILL keeps trying to turn his personal bugaboo into some kind of burning issue of controversy.
Even if that were true about “NS”’s motivation to continue his work - your rhetorical “bugaboo” turn of phrase exposes your own bias. Public character assassination, attempted sabotage of someone else’s parnassa ... the amount of time that has passed since then is irrelevant and “the way it was said” is not justification for anything. I am not holding my breath but 20 years later I am “still” waiting for the public apology along with “NS”.
You have to be realistic. Nobody ever apologizes in these types of things, because nobody ever thinks they were wrong in the first place. If they cared to, any disputant of NS could point to his own admitted evolution, or to any of countless blog posts, as evidence of the correctness of their position. YOU (or me, but we're not talking about me) might not see it that way, but they don't see things the way you do, either.
Even if I became a Christian missionary, how on earth would that be evidence that the Rishonim and Acharonim who said that Chazal were mistaken in science were espousing kefirah?
"The latest fad is that a person gets Cheremed for tone, so he gets rid of his name and socks (which thanks to our advanced technology and our being in the Pollak 'back to the future' generation, get erased retroactively, or more likely only m'kan ul'haba l'mafreia) and tone, and repeats his good old ideas in gentler terms.
RDS is an example of this who, having gotten Cheremed for tone, took on the new identity RAN and repeated very gently his ideas in the new 'The Great Z’manim Debate' book. Then he wrote an elaborate denial that it isn't he. Now, in the wake of the Cherem from ~19 years ago, the hoi polloi Cheremed those Machrimim for THEIR tone, (mysteriously but conspicuously absent in some of the English translations). This time that will be corrected. They will reissue their Cherem on the TGZD book, but only in gentler terms.
Rabbeinu Tam has a Gemara that taught him that definite nightfall is a fixed amount of time after the Sheki'ah. That fixed amount of time is measured by the amount of time it takes for people to walk four mil. The yardstick used is not a watch, sand timer, candle, or braying horses. It is the time it takes a person to walk four mil. Nowadays, we use the words 72 minutes to denote that.
Throughout history, humans have had legs and they have walked. They could always measure this distance and therefore time. (Yotzros for Shabbos Shekalim discusses the intersection between time and space regarding measurements.)
Our basic attitude to Rishonim and Gedolei Ha'acharonim is that they were not fools. They are not easily refuted with something that they could have figured out easily by themselves. If RT ignored those calculations, and the difference between various points on the globe, when those differences are obvious, he clearly held that those differences are irrelevant. (Quite possibly because the Gemara in Pesachim is referring to people in EY, making their way to Yerushalayim for Pesach.) Some Gedolei Ha'acharonim disagreed and held that those differences are relevant, and with that premise, asked various questions on RT.
Why does RT hold that the differences are irrelevant? I don't know, but not knowing doesn't mean he is wrong. I can hypothesize with the theory of כל מדות חכמים כך הם, that things were measured in absolute terms, rather than relative terms. A שיעור מיל is an absolute measurement, that does not require a person to invent any tools. If we wanted to measure something like time, Chazal decided it based on this. Just like many other subjective sevaros that have objective gedarim - כל מדות חכמים כך הם.
This may not be the pshat, but פון א קשיא שטארבט מען ניט, especially when we would be fools to think that he did not think of it.
The Gra is another opinion, to which he is entitled. But seeing as we are not the Gra, and we accept the Rishonim's words as binding, we are still stuck in a safek between the Gra and RT, among others.
1. That is not the point. The question is only, "Was he wrong about something easily proven? Or does he have a different opinion to his opponents, that answers their questions?"
Someone who hasn't spent time actually attempting to understand a Rishon, will casually dismiss his words based on his own ideas. But that is not only wrong, it is irrational. It is not rational to think that a smart person like RT made a stupid mistake. A true rationalist would take the second option and either try and understand, or leave the matter as a צ"ע.
2. He is certainly not a da'as yachid. Some claim his is the majority opinion. I think the Koloshitzer Rav has a Kuntres enumerating the 'majority' of Rishonim that hold like RT, which he learned in Shinev from Belz. Especially considering the fact that the Shulchan Aruch seems to pasken like him, at least regarding Shabbos' arrival, it is difficult to discount his opinion. It also seems to have been the accepted opinion in many parts of Eastern Europe. Not necessarily 72 fixed minutes, but the basic idea that the Gemara in Pesachim is the Halacha, not the Gemara in Shabbos.
No we are not. We now know that 3 stars emerge well before that time in EY/bavel every time of the year. Being that 3 stars is night according to the Gemara we have no other option than to accept the gras shita.
That’s ridiculous. Being that it’s the same amount of time as from alos to neitz it is clearly referring to a sky full of stars, as the gra points out.
Using stars in EY as proof assumes RT did not know about them. If he knew about them and held that they proved nothing, we are still stuck in a safek.
Seeing as it doesn't take any new inventions to know anything about stars in EY, it is highly unlikely that RT did not know about them. Yet he held that he could safely ignore them. Why? I don't know. I wish I did. Then again, I wish I knew pshat in the Ba'al Hama'or in Bava Metzia that I have been struggling with the last few days.
"If RT ignored those calculations, and the difference between various points on the globe, when those differences are obvious, he clearly held that those differences are irrelevant."
We don't know that. Maybe RT would accept lfi ha'ofek. And his 72 minutes was referring to a specific place and time of the year.
But the metzi'us against him does not, on its own, prove him wrong. At the most it can tell us to learn a different pshat in his words. If no other pshat was possible, you would have to be an ignorant arrogant fool to think you have caught him out in an obvious mistake.
You are treating RT like a moron. He wasn't a zoologist, he took actual responsibility for his words, and it is not too difficult to figure out how the world looks and to know how the sun's path changes according to proximity to the equator.
Only a complete fool could not figure this out. Considering RT in that category removes you from the discussion.
The Minchas Cohen did not say that RT did not know the metzi'us. That's a chidush of the generation of חוצפה יסגי, where any ignoramus thinks his opinion is equal to that of Chazal. A generation of anti-vaxxers on steroids.
Well, it's not just me being the arrogant fool. It's millions, if not billions, of eyes in the world since RT.
Unfortunately, unless you really are into granting RT supernational papal infallibility, yes, the metzius can prove him wrong. Even Moshe Rabbeinu made mistakes, you know.
"we use the words 72 minutes to denote that". What does that mean?
But there is no way that the walking method can give 72 minutes fixed, every time, for everybody. What age? What altitude increase/decrease? What stamina? What speed?
That is exactly my point. Thank you very much.
And it wouldn't have helped for alos, either. Can't walk backwards in time. So if there is a '72 minute fixed' halochoh, you need to explain how Hashem could give a halochoh that is not calculable for most of brias ha'olem'.
PS An 18 minute mil is also subject to machlokas, by the way.
Who told you that the שיעור מיל needs to be determined with that level of exactitude? There is an entire perek in Keilim devoted to teaching us how to use the measurements of Chazal, and they are still vague. What is a זית אגורי? How much does it have to be אוגר? What is the size range of רמוני באדן?
What's wrong with vague? Who said that they are absolute. About 72 minutes might also be enough. But that number is fixed, because כל מדות חכמים כך הם.
You can't say that when they couldn't measure the 72 minutes, as I have mentioned before (and you keep avoiding). In fact you are now becoming somewhat circular (not the first time). You say the 72 minutes can be measured in walking, and that is what they did, but the source of the 72 minutes is the walking!
Chazal told us what it is. Walking a mil. The average person on the average day walking a mil. This is Chazal. Break your head to understand it. But don't pretend it doesn't exist.
They were happy giving us this measurement, along with זית אגורי, רמוני באדן and more.
For a scientific explanation of ovi harakia and the gemara in Pesachim about it see the sefer Kanfei Yona on Yore Deah (written by the mchaber of shu"t meil tzedaka and mote, a great gaon who was niftear in the year 1712) siman 69 saif 6.
There u go again, responding to your critics in precisely the wrong way, by screaming at the top of your lungs "YOUR ASSERTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE!" If they cared about evidence, they'd already be "Jewish rationalists" (and if they REALLY cared about evidence, they'd be just rationalists).
Yes, updating your beliefs in light of new evidence is a good and praiseworthy thing!!! Refusing to ever change your mind no matter what doesn't make it more likely that ur correct!
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing as where the sun goes at night - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
There's an important part of that footnote that you didn't bring, he quotes Rabbi Meiselman statement that this only applies to astronomy, and then he says about that statement יש שלא מצאו הכרח לזה (it sounds like he argues).
Either way, the reason why this sefer is unproblematic is precisely because of the statement you quoted "However, since we find that Rebbi was willing to accept an alternate view that seemed more correct, later chachamim had no reluctance to state that the assumption of chachmei Yisrael that the rakia is a dome and the sun travels through windows in the rakia has been disproven." He's approaching it from a serious halacha perspective, not from a kefira perspective. This is similar to what R' Beinish did with the kezayis.
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
That's like asking, if the Rambam was wrong about y'mei niddah and y'mei zivah, why on earth would we think he is correct about thousands of other halachos he paskened? Why can't we moderns just argue on the Rambam whenever we have a difficulty with him?
We believe in the Torah sh'bal Peh. We trust Chazal. We have a *very strong* assumption that the maskana of Chazal was correct, even though we know there are thousands of places where members of Chazal felt other members of Chazal were wrong. There is nothing special about that Gemara in Pesachim over the thousands of other machlokes in Shas where we decide one side seems correct.
Also, why is the path of the sun "basic"? There is nothing at all basic about it. Maybe you mean compared to more modern discoveries like electromagnetism.
We are talking about knowledge of the natural world. Why would Chazal possess obscure knowledge about things such as zoology, regarding which the Torah says nothing, if they didn't know that the sun does not go behind the sky at night, which is something much more basic, and about which they believed the Torah does give information?
Again, your logic makes no sense. It's like asking, why would Rava possess knowledge about obscure halachos of stam yeinam (of which the Torah says nothing), if he was once wrong about something in Yevamos? You also never explain why knowing about the path of the sun is so basic.
Don't fall into the 'dodgy moshol' yeshivish trap.
"That's like asking, if the Rambam was wrong about y'mei niddah and y'mei zivah, why on earth would we think he is correct about thousands of other halachos he paskened?"
Because those other halachos aren't dependent on the metzius.
"There is nothing special about that Gemara in Pesachim over the thousands of other machlokes in Shas where we decide one side seems correct."
This is actually very different. It's Chazal arguing against the chachmei umos haolam and a lone Tanna speaks up tells Chazal they are wrong and the chachmei umos haolam are right, based on what their arguments (which were also wrong, but whatever).
"Because those other halachos aren't dependent on the metzius."
That's not a logical response. We think Rambam was wrong about how he learned Gemara X. We think he misunderstood the Gemara, he misunderstood what the Tannaim or Amoraim were saying. Why in the world would he be correct about how he learned countless other Gemaras?
"This is actually very different"- No it's not. The only difference is the goyim are involved. It's not different in terms of Chazal saying Chazal was wrong, which happens thousands of times in Shas.
Um, yes it is. You basically ignored what I wrote and said there's no difference.
A machlokes about how to understand a gemara is very different from misunderstanding physical reality. For a sevara, there are usually two sides which have elements of truth to them (heim-ve-heim, etc.). But
when the Rambam says the size of the moon is about 1/45 of the size of the Earth, or when he says the planets' orbit make noises, we ignore it because it's wrong. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand.
Uh, no. There are not "two sides" to what Rava meant when he said halacha X. If we maintain the Rambam misunderstood the statement of Rava and ruled based on that misinterpretation, he is wrong, plain and simple (unless you want to get mystical, God forbid for a rationalist).
When the Rambam says the moon is 1/45 of the size of the Earth, you ignore it because you think it's wrong independently. Not because the Rambam was wrong elsewhere about something completely different.
Otherwise you have a strong assumption the Rambam is right, despite that he got y'mei ziva wrong, or the size of the moon wrong. Slifkin's usage of Pesachim 94 is just totally ridiculous. He could have used any machlokes in Shas to "prove" that Chazal could possibly be wrong.
You seem to be asleep. There's an adage about new ideas. I think I encountered it in both Torah and other sources. That new ideas go through three stages. First, they are opposed. Then they are eventually accepted. Finally, they are seen as obvious—why give credit to whoever said them; we knew it all along! And proofs—who needs proofs?!?
Here we're starting the 20th year since your ban, and you lost track of what your opposition had said then. Or more specifically, what they had written. Basically, Schmeltzerism. Back then it would have been a huge deal if even one Gemara showed Chazal scientifically fallible even once, and would have knocked Schmeltzerism out. Over time many forgot about you and your Cherem and we don't know what they're thinking nowadays. And there are those who maintained interest. And (with your assistance that they forgot by now) their eyes slowly opened to Chazal's fallibility being a more legitimate possibility. So today you cite Pesachim 94 and they say, oh, we knew it all along.
(There may be people who knew it all along. But they weren't there back then telling the Machrimim that they went too far.)
I liked the other character waaay better, and I got the joke. This one I don't get... I didn't get the Humana one either
Welcome back:) The fun will start again!
"So you’d think that a new book on a topic of Torah and science, which is endorsed by Rav Miller and cites Rabbi Meiselman to legitimize one of its most crucial points, would be something that I detest. But in fact, I think it’s amazing."
"The answer is that this book says it in such a way as to make it almost unassailable. The reason why the book can do this is that it restricts itself to mentioning this in the context of one very, very specific topic: the sun’s path at night."
Amazing. Just amazing. You know what's even more amazing? BMG has numerous copies of 'tractate pesachim' on their shelves. You can literally walk into their batei midrash and open up to the 'folio' where it says chazal admitted to being wrong. Isn't that shocking???
....Seriously, this post is such click-bait, I was half expecting one of those ads for miraculous anti-aging cream to start popping up.
It's not so simple. There is ONE Rishon who learns differently. That is Rabbeinu Tam quoted in shitta mekubetzes (Ketubot 11b?) -Check the Gilyon haShas in Pesachim.
But everyone else seem to differ.
A great source is
שו"ת מהר"ם אלאשקר
Not sure what that has to do with my comment.
Excerpt from your comment:
"You can literally walk into their batei midrash and open up to the 'folio' where it says chazal admitted to being wrong. Isn't that shocking???"
My response In other words:
Wrong.
It's not a mefurash Gemara. I cannot understand why you did not understand. Rabbeinu Tam says that the chachamim did not concede, but were just admitting that at first glance the other opinion appeared more correct.
It's what you will hear if walk into BMG and pull a Gemara off the shelf...
So this is not clickable after all.
You're nit-picking. The gemara is mefurash. Rabeinu Tam explains the gemara d'lo k'pshuto. It's a chiddush.
This post is click-bait because from the headline and opening you'd think it was some sort of closely guarded secret that chazal ever admitted they were wrong. It's not. Rabbi Meiselman admits it. Artscroll admits it. And Slifkin *admits they admit it* right in the post. Turning rabbi Notis's citing of that point into some sort of 'aha!' moment with a 'Mission Impossible' meme is about as click-baity as you can get.
For goodness' sakes. Do you really not know what the yeshiva world is like? R. Meiselman only admits it after spending endless pages trying to avoid and obfuscate it. The standard line in yeshivos is "but Rabbeinu Tam... but Maharal..." The 36 Gedolim who signed against my book all declared that it's heretical.
"For goodness' sakes. Do you really not know what the yeshiva world is like?"
I know very well what it's like. I'm actually a part of it, not an embittered former member of it. Your attempt to dramatize the utterly prosaic is exactly what click-bait is. It would be like Yosef Mizrachi writing "NATAN SLIFKIN ADMITS CHAREIDIM WERE RIGHT TO BAN HIS BOOKS BECAUSE HE REALLY IS A DANGEROUS HERETIC," and then following that up with a link to a post by you where you make some generic statement about how every community gets to decides what constitutes a heretic, etc etc.
"R. Meiselman only admits it after spending endless pages trying to avoid and obfuscate it. "
Whatever that might mean. Are you saying he was hoping people wouldn't read that far? If not, what on earth are you saying?
In general, you seem rather peeved that he didn't mention you by name, https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/torah-chazal-and-science didn't write his book the way you would have, https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/omitting-inconvenient-sources and now, that anything past a certain page number in his book doesn't count. It's all very sad to watch.
"The standard line in yeshivos is "but Rabbeinu Tam... but Maharal..." The 36 Gedolim who signed against my book all declared that it's heretical."
Which yeshivos? And how on earth would you know?
Shaul,
I'm sure it's not picking when that was and still is the most common way to learn in the Yeshivos!
The reason for this: if Chazal indeed had a mesorah, they could not possibly be wrong.
If they admit they were mistaken, it tells us they did not have a mesora. Rather, they were using their G-d given intellect just like we do. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
Why does every מאמר חז"ל need to be a mesora from Sinai or divinely transmitted? Who is really pushing this agenda? Chazal themselves clearly state it is a mesora when it is. Enough for now. I don't advise you to go into it if you already agree; just be aware that there are people who cannot accept this Gemara k'pshuto.
Your content was never the main issue. It was your confidence and attitude. The I know better than the Rabbis and there are two camps which allows me to deny the Rabbis is a pretty big issue. Not because you're right and we're scared of exposure to you because it undermines our 'fake mesorah.' Rather because you're wrong but its so complex that those who are ignorant on these matters should best leave it to the experts as so not to lead other layman astray.
No one has a problem saying that Chazal didn't know Riemann geometry or the mathematics of the gauge quantum field theory. It isn't such a stretch that they didn't know how astronomy works scientifically. But the mesorah has taught us something along the lines that the way we perceive the world with our eyes has deep meaning which is what matters to the true reality of nature, the spiritual essence. I barely understand these things but if you don't trust that the Gr'a and Ramchal and Arizal understood these essences, why do you believe in anything our mesorah taught us?
It's so funny how people constantly insist that the Gedolim meant things other than what they explicitly said that they mean. And when they claim that rabbis who don't even read English were actually only opposed to the way that I said things.
If I'm wrong I retract and I apologize. I have no doubt that there were many annoying kanaim who should've thought twice. I hate bans, especially yours. But I know for a fact that many gedolim in America felt the way I described.
Ok, so if you think that they had no problem with the content, then clearly they have been misunderstood! So let them come out and say so. Better yet, let them write a book with the same content but in the correct "tone," and they will help so many people!
Actually let me be more clear: your content is wrong. You say that chazal were wrong. they weren't. They were only wrong scientifically. But from a Torah perspective that hardly matters. You think it matters greatly. And you are correct. IF you don't understand what the Torah is about. But how do we tell someone who doesn't know what the Torah is about to wait and ask questions later? If we say not to ask her thinks we're close minded. If we encourage the questions and he discovers some of these strong ones too early, he's likely to lose his appreciation for chazal. Which is ultimately what our beliefs are based on. Our unparalleled ethos. So what the gedolim try to do is teach that chazal were superhumanly great, which they were, and when am individual has a question, we deal with it on an individual basis in which we can still have hope that we can relay the proper ethos.
What you did is say that there needs to be answers for those struggling and you went behind their backs and in your small minded world you thought you were helping. I'm not saying some people weren't helped by your approach. But from a bigger picture perspective, is there any other way other than to deal with you?
Best mashal is a classroom with a usher with a certain goal one kid thinks he knows better. What do you do with that kid? What is he's a very persuasive writer with thousands of followers?
I'm not saying what happened was okay on a personal level. Maybe they should have left it to a different folks for different strokes and if some want to get it wind so be it. But I'd your were in their shoes, can you blame them?
" They were only wrong scientifically. But from a Torah perspective that hardly matters."
That's not what the banners claimed. Not only did they assert that Chazal weren't "wrong scientifically, they also stated that the denial of Chazal's expertise in science was heresy. Thus it did matter from a Torah perspective.
It appears that your conflating your agenda with the banners'.
I keep seeing commenters in this forum talking for the Gedolim and offering reasons for them. What they are doing is attributing their own personal views to the Gedolim. So much for Daas Torah.
Well, you guys have different missions. I can't talk for anyone but I'd say these topics aren't necessarily meant for public consumption because while chazal may have erred, what they said is still true 100% as they were describing a spiritual essence. To teach that they were infallible is a much more important message which stays true even after understanding the later nuance that they erred in scientific matters. For most people the things you wrote are way further from the truth than the flipside.
Put yourself in their shoes, what would you do?
What makes you so sure that they were describing a "spiritual essence"? The Rishonim didn't think so.
The rishonim who didn't have a mesorah, correct. but they were wrong too, not chazal. And you can cry and make up two camps when in reality they were a step removed from our camp and in the step they didn't take, they were wrong we don't make wrong mainstream and we teach those kinds of things to people who are ready. From my understanding, you still don't know what spiritual essence are. You still call them esoteric manipulations or something like that when in reality they are really about getting close to God...
Doesn’t every religious tradition (really any tradition of values / customs / commitments) make a claim to deep meaning? Isn’t that the whole reason adherents are commanded to discuss and learn them and pass them on? The question is whether it originates from human desire and need, or from something “higher.”
Every religion seems to privilege its own way of seeing, it’s own “deep” lessons, as the truth that is preferred. Can we appreciate that sociological reality, as students of religion.?
This is a big nothingburger. The earth's path at night is the one easy place to admit Chazal erred - only because Chazal tell us just that. It's also the exception that proves the rule that everywhere else we assume they didn't err.
You also quote RMM as admitting Chachamim were wrong in this case - so what's the big chidush?
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
Why on earth would they be incorrect? Here's the difference between you and me - you assume they're incorrect until proven otherwise, while I assume the opposite.
I think that modern science has proven that spontaneous generation does not happen, that lions are not pregnant for three years, that bats do not lay eggs, etc. Why would Chazal possess obscure knowledge about zoology, regarding which the Torah says nothing, if they didn't know that the sun does not go behind the sky at night, about which they believed the Torah does give information?
The gemarah says they were wrong, so the position is only a haava mina. What you're suggesting is like asking how could any sage every be right about anything if he ever held a position that was disproven at some point.
The items you mentioned are fair game for discussion - but to somehow prove that Chazal were wrong about them simply because there is an admission of a mistake in ONE place is just ridiculous.
It wasn't a "hava amina." The Gemara is not a person. It was the view of numerous earlier sages, which they supported from pesukim and presented elsewhere in Shas.
It's effectively the same thing. It is a position that is not held at the end. Doesn't matter that there were sources and pesukim. You can have that in any hava amina too. Are you playing dumb?
Yasher Koach!
Hey! Don't give away Lakewood's secret! We don't need another book banned!
Honestly, whether the author believes what he quoted from Rabbi Meiselman or not, makes no difference. He did a great political move by doing so, making his un-apologetic sefer look mainstream.
You are so on the ball over here.
If love to hear your thoughts thought on this whole thing...
Which? There are a number of discussions floating around.
Shitas Rabeinu Tam? Shitas 72 Shavos? Shitas Rabbi Meiselman? Shitas NS? Shitas The Great Zemanim debate?
If you have any specific questions on any of these I can try to answer.
My personal opinion is somewhere between Rabbi Meiselman and The Great Zemanim Debate.
This comment expresses it best.
https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/mission-impossible/comment/39849703.
The sugya is obviously much much bigger than that but that should always be the starting point.
I agree with Rav Chaim Zimmerman on this point . Chachma bgoyim taamin. Chazal we're busy learning Torah. They didn't spend years doing scientific research. They relied on the best science of the times. If they applied a pasuk to some scientific matter it was just an esmachta balma. Applying sod Hashem lyireiov to mean chazal knew all science is wishful thinking and ignorance of both science and Torah.
I flipped through this book, and it is clear that there is essentially there is no basis for waiting 72 minutes after Shabbos (in the US). The book also quotes - I believe Rav Shlomo Fisher - in a response to someone shocked that the Rabbeinu Tam could be wrong: "It's simple - he was shlugged up!"
(Maybe it's ok if you say they were wrong in a yeshivish way 😉)
Rav Yisrael Yaakov Fisher. He was much more Yeshivish than his brother.
Rabbeinu Tam never said '72 minutes' for the US. Not sure if he said 72 minutes at all. By the way, until recently there was no way of measuring 72 minutes accurately. Especially after sunset.
I don't believe that story.
I have two words for you - sand timers
And they used a Casio to calibrate the sand timers? Yep, every Jewish home had a 72 minute sand timer. And a luach telling them when sunset was to start turning the sand timer. 😀
So, from 'no way', you have moved on.
Yet curiously, you find it difficult to write the words 'I was wrong'.
You also fail to locate where I wrote anything about 'every Jewish home'.
Interesting.
I haven't moved on. They had no way of calculating 72 minutes from sunset. I stand by that, and you have not rebutted it. It didn't matter. They didn't use minutes, they didn't use degrees, they used their eyes. But nitpick all you like on the use of the term 'Jewish home', as if that is the main point.
And by the way, real evidence for sand timers only dates them reliably to 1300s to 1400s and later. If they were in widespread use before then, historians would bring that date earlier.
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices
"Sundials and water clocks were first used in ancient Egypt from 1500 BC and later by the Babylonians, the Greeks and the Chinese. Incense clocks were being used in China by the 6th century. In the medieval period, Islamic water clocks were unrivalled in their sophistication until the mid-14th century. The hourglass, invented in Europe, was one of the few reliable methods of measuring time at sea."
Ancient people weren't dumb or unsophisticated. They lacked certain technology, but keeping time isn't something you need an app on a smartphone to do.
Maybe historians don't bring the date earlier because they don't know.
Your blind emuna in historians is touching.
The main thing is, Jewish homes are not the issue. The question is the Halacha. If people didn't have a way to figure it out, maybe they found a workaround, maybe they were machmir. The Halacha doesn't change much.
He said 4 mil, so what’s that in minutes?
Good question. Machlokas.
And he said 4 mil when and where exactly? Another good question. Are you aware that in many parts of the world in the Summer it is bright daylight well before 72 minutes before haneitz?
Ever heard of the phrase 'l'fi ho'ofek'?
So where did he say 4 mil?
Lfi ho’ofek is the gras taana on RT.
Lfi Ho'ofek is your eyes, man. Nobody uses 72 minutes fixed l'kulah, by the way. I can assure in Radin in the peak of the Summer the sky was very bright 72 minutes after sunset. You think all the Rabneinu Tam followers made havdoloh?
Why is that?
Plenty of people calculate 72 fix lkula in regards to alos.
It is ludicrous, of course.
You need to read Rabbi Notice’s book.
Good question. Much ink has been spilt on that. Also when in the year. Maybe Bovel at the equinox.
That’s the gra. RT doesn’t seem to have been aware that it fluctuates.
There is no basis for waiting 72 minutes in Tzefas where the mechaber lived either. It's pitch black long before that time.
According to RT there is no basis?
Yes. See above. 72 minutes fixed in all places for every day of the year is wrong. You can verify this with your own eyes. No seforim, da'as torah, rabbis or spherical geometry needed. You just need to know what a star is. And remember, don't put the cart before the horse. These zemanim are supposed to be emperical. All this minute stuff came later. (A bit like kezayis is supposed to be a minimum shiur achilah and cannot possibly be a shiur which means you have to stuff yourself to the maximum)
That's correct. Everything is in the way it is said, not necessarily what is said.
It remains one of the funniest things on the Jewish internet that our host, the one and only NS, is STILL stuck in this rut, twenty years later, and STILL keeps trying to turn his personal bugaboo into some kind of burning issue of controversy.
Even if that were true about “NS”’s motivation to continue his work - your rhetorical “bugaboo” turn of phrase exposes your own bias. Public character assassination, attempted sabotage of someone else’s parnassa ... the amount of time that has passed since then is irrelevant and “the way it was said” is not justification for anything. I am not holding my breath but 20 years later I am “still” waiting for the public apology along with “NS”.
You have to be realistic. Nobody ever apologizes in these types of things, because nobody ever thinks they were wrong in the first place. If they cared to, any disputant of NS could point to his own admitted evolution, or to any of countless blog posts, as evidence of the correctness of their position. YOU (or me, but we're not talking about me) might not see it that way, but they don't see things the way you do, either.
Even if I became a Christian missionary, how on earth would that be evidence that the Rishonim and Acharonim who said that Chazal were mistaken in science were espousing kefirah?
It would be evidence that you were not someone who could be trusted to articulate Jewish beliefs.
What difference whether I am trustworthy? Either the statements in my books are true or they are false.
"So you’d think that a new book ...would be something that I detest."
No one would think this. You're a contrarian, it's who you are.
"neverthless every single Rishon and numerous Acharonim"
-- Nevertheless
Another excellent post!
As I wrote here https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/the-ultimate-mishnah/comment/39785045,
"The latest fad is that a person gets Cheremed for tone, so he gets rid of his name and socks (which thanks to our advanced technology and our being in the Pollak 'back to the future' generation, get erased retroactively, or more likely only m'kan ul'haba l'mafreia) and tone, and repeats his good old ideas in gentler terms.
RDS is an example of this who, having gotten Cheremed for tone, took on the new identity RAN and repeated very gently his ideas in the new 'The Great Z’manim Debate' book. Then he wrote an elaborate denial that it isn't he. Now, in the wake of the Cherem from ~19 years ago, the hoi polloi Cheremed those Machrimim for THEIR tone, (mysteriously but conspicuously absent in some of the English translations). This time that will be corrected. They will reissue their Cherem on the TGZD book, but only in gentler terms.
Just to summarize my position here:
Rabbeinu Tam has a Gemara that taught him that definite nightfall is a fixed amount of time after the Sheki'ah. That fixed amount of time is measured by the amount of time it takes for people to walk four mil. The yardstick used is not a watch, sand timer, candle, or braying horses. It is the time it takes a person to walk four mil. Nowadays, we use the words 72 minutes to denote that.
Throughout history, humans have had legs and they have walked. They could always measure this distance and therefore time. (Yotzros for Shabbos Shekalim discusses the intersection between time and space regarding measurements.)
Our basic attitude to Rishonim and Gedolei Ha'acharonim is that they were not fools. They are not easily refuted with something that they could have figured out easily by themselves. If RT ignored those calculations, and the difference between various points on the globe, when those differences are obvious, he clearly held that those differences are irrelevant. (Quite possibly because the Gemara in Pesachim is referring to people in EY, making their way to Yerushalayim for Pesach.) Some Gedolei Ha'acharonim disagreed and held that those differences are relevant, and with that premise, asked various questions on RT.
Why does RT hold that the differences are irrelevant? I don't know, but not knowing doesn't mean he is wrong. I can hypothesize with the theory of כל מדות חכמים כך הם, that things were measured in absolute terms, rather than relative terms. A שיעור מיל is an absolute measurement, that does not require a person to invent any tools. If we wanted to measure something like time, Chazal decided it based on this. Just like many other subjective sevaros that have objective gedarim - כל מדות חכמים כך הם.
This may not be the pshat, but פון א קשיא שטארבט מען ניט, especially when we would be fools to think that he did not think of it.
The Gra is another opinion, to which he is entitled. But seeing as we are not the Gra, and we accept the Rishonim's words as binding, we are still stuck in a safek between the Gra and RT, among others.
Isn't the RT a daas yachid among the Rishonim anyway?
1. That is not the point. The question is only, "Was he wrong about something easily proven? Or does he have a different opinion to his opponents, that answers their questions?"
Someone who hasn't spent time actually attempting to understand a Rishon, will casually dismiss his words based on his own ideas. But that is not only wrong, it is irrational. It is not rational to think that a smart person like RT made a stupid mistake. A true rationalist would take the second option and either try and understand, or leave the matter as a צ"ע.
2. He is certainly not a da'as yachid. Some claim his is the majority opinion. I think the Koloshitzer Rav has a Kuntres enumerating the 'majority' of Rishonim that hold like RT, which he learned in Shinev from Belz. Especially considering the fact that the Shulchan Aruch seems to pasken like him, at least regarding Shabbos' arrival, it is difficult to discount his opinion. It also seems to have been the accepted opinion in many parts of Eastern Europe. Not necessarily 72 fixed minutes, but the basic idea that the Gemara in Pesachim is the Halacha, not the Gemara in Shabbos.
No we are not. We now know that 3 stars emerge well before that time in EY/bavel every time of the year. Being that 3 stars is night according to the Gemara we have no other option than to accept the gras shita.
Being that four mil after Shkiah is night according to the Gemara we have no other option than to accept RT's shita.
FTFY
That’s ridiculous. Being that it’s the same amount of time as from alos to neitz it is clearly referring to a sky full of stars, as the gra points out.
Using stars in EY as proof assumes RT did not know about them. If he knew about them and held that they proved nothing, we are still stuck in a safek.
Seeing as it doesn't take any new inventions to know anything about stars in EY, it is highly unlikely that RT did not know about them. Yet he held that he could safely ignore them. Why? I don't know. I wish I did. Then again, I wish I knew pshat in the Ba'al Hama'or in Bava Metzia that I have been struggling with the last few days.
The Minchos Cohen could not figure out when stars in EY emerge. Why do you think RT was different?
But he could figure out that it is quicker than in Amsterdam. Which is the entire point here.
He speculates that it may be longer if I recall correctly.
"If RT ignored those calculations, and the difference between various points on the globe, when those differences are obvious, he clearly held that those differences are irrelevant."
We don't know that. Maybe RT would accept lfi ha'ofek. And his 72 minutes was referring to a specific place and time of the year.
That's one pshat. Subject to other questions.
But the metzi'us against him does not, on its own, prove him wrong. At the most it can tell us to learn a different pshat in his words. If no other pshat was possible, you would have to be an ignorant arrogant fool to think you have caught him out in an obvious mistake.
Why do you insist on ignoring what he clearly writes, that his position is based on his understanding that the sun travels through the עובי הרקיע.
It won’t make it go away.
Why do you insist on obfuscating the fact that it was not “obvious” to RT when 3 stars in EY was visible?
He did not live there.
You are treating RT like a moron. He wasn't a zoologist, he took actual responsibility for his words, and it is not too difficult to figure out how the world looks and to know how the sun's path changes according to proximity to the equator.
Only a complete fool could not figure this out. Considering RT in that category removes you from the discussion.
That doesn’t mean he knew when 3 stars in EY emerged.
Your obfuscation knows no bounds.
So the Minchas Cohen was a complete fool, eh?
Considering him in that category removed you from the discussion.
The Minchas Cohen did not say that RT did not know the metzi'us. That's a chidush of the generation of חוצפה יסגי, where any ignoramus thinks his opinion is equal to that of Chazal. A generation of anti-vaxxers on steroids.
Well, it's not just me being the arrogant fool. It's millions, if not billions, of eyes in the world since RT.
Unfortunately, unless you really are into granting RT supernational papal infallibility, yes, the metzius can prove him wrong. Even Moshe Rabbeinu made mistakes, you know.
So, I will go with RT agreeing with lfi ha'ofek.
Why would the Gemara be referring to an ofek other than bavel/EY?
RT could just about work in Bovel/EY referring to the smallest stars when they appear in the west. That is where 16.1 degrees come from.
“Smallest stars in the west” isn’t the shuir. It’s middle size stars anywhere.
No. The Gemara is discussing Korban Pesach, which was not brought in France, Lakewood, or Stamford Hill.
And it is still four mil. At a time close to the equinox.
Which is why the ofek pshat in RT (which the Gra does not hold of), is also untenable.
So 4 fixed mil anywhere in the world at all times. Yet the Gemara gives simanim based on stars and stuff. How perfectly idiotic.
RT could just about work in Bovel/EY referring to the smallest stars when they appear in the west. That is where 16.1 degrees come from.
Good question.
"we use the words 72 minutes to denote that". What does that mean?
But there is no way that the walking method can give 72 minutes fixed, every time, for everybody. What age? What altitude increase/decrease? What stamina? What speed?
That is exactly my point. Thank you very much.
And it wouldn't have helped for alos, either. Can't walk backwards in time. So if there is a '72 minute fixed' halochoh, you need to explain how Hashem could give a halochoh that is not calculable for most of brias ha'olem'.
PS An 18 minute mil is also subject to machlokas, by the way.
Who told you that the שיעור מיל needs to be determined with that level of exactitude? There is an entire perek in Keilim devoted to teaching us how to use the measurements of Chazal, and they are still vague. What is a זית אגורי? How much does it have to be אוגר? What is the size range of רמוני באדן?
That's how Chazal always rolled.
Agree, that's my point. Part of the fundemental problem with '72 minutes fixed'.
You haven't addressed my other points by the way.
What's wrong with vague? Who said that they are absolute. About 72 minutes might also be enough. But that number is fixed, because כל מדות חכמים כך הם.
You can't say that when they couldn't measure the 72 minutes, as I have mentioned before (and you keep avoiding). In fact you are now becoming somewhat circular (not the first time). You say the 72 minutes can be measured in walking, and that is what they did, but the source of the 72 minutes is the walking!
No. I answered again and again.
Chazal told us what it is. Walking a mil. The average person on the average day walking a mil. This is Chazal. Break your head to understand it. But don't pretend it doesn't exist.
They were happy giving us this measurement, along with זית אגורי, רמוני באדן and more.
For a scientific explanation of ovi harakia and the gemara in Pesachim about it see the sefer Kanfei Yona on Yore Deah (written by the mchaber of shu"t meil tzedaka and mote, a great gaon who was niftear in the year 1712) siman 69 saif 6.
There u go again, responding to your critics in precisely the wrong way, by screaming at the top of your lungs "YOUR ASSERTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE!" If they cared about evidence, they'd already be "Jewish rationalists" (and if they REALLY cared about evidence, they'd be just rationalists).
"If they cared about evidence, they'd already be "Jewish rationalists" (and if they REALLY cared about evidence, they'd be just rationalists)."
Says you.
Also says you,
https://dovber.substack.com/p/defending-the-indefensible-part-2/comment/21273608
"The problem is that people (including highly intelligent people) believe their arguments are good even when their arguments are bad."
Or, and this may shock you, they may consider the same evidence you do, and come to different conclusions, fully rationally.
no they don't lol. if they really do look at the evidence, then they are forced to either
1) just-not-think-about-it or fall back on emuna
2) make absolute clowns of themselves (e.g. atalef = platypus) as OP has extensively documented
neither of which is rational
Meanwhile, you believe all of the "evidence", even as it constantly changes.
Yes, updating your beliefs in light of new evidence is a good and praiseworthy thing!!! Refusing to ever change your mind no matter what doesn't make it more likely that ur correct!
If the Gemara says clearly that the חכמי אומות העולם are correct then essentially Chazal were right, as science has proven.
Someone is obfuscating here and it isn’t Rabbi Meiselman.
But if they were wrong about such a basic thing as where the sun goes at night - and they even thought that they had Torah basis for their position - why on earth would they necessarily be correct about more obscure things?
There's an excellent three volume set on Zmanim as well.
I have found that Zmanim are an excellent "red-pill" for chareidi people who think chazal and rishonim are always correct scientifically.
What set are you referring to?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1946351989/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_apa_gl_i_7ZRNKG1FBE02C1EG7F7X?linkCode=ml2&tag=thatsfrumthea-20