Representation and Non-Verbal Thinking: 1. Conceptual Representation (Column 379)
With God’s help
Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.
In column 376 I discussed various limitations that stem from the fact that the contents we think about present themselves to us through representations. These limitations hinder our thinking in different ways and can lead us to mistaken conclusions. We saw that there are conclusions we reach and believe pertain to the content itself, whereas in fact they deal only with the representation (what our postmodernist cousins call the problematics of the relation between signifier and signified). I ended that column with a promise to address non-verbal thinking and Platonism. So here you go, Tolginus: after a break of two columns I’ve arrived at that too. In the coming columns I will deal with conceptual and linguistic representation of mental content, and with the limitations that follow from treating these representations.
Two planes of representation of the Torah
We are accustomed to think that “Torah” is a certain text—the Five Books given to us at Sinai—and their interpretations. Here I wish to show that this particular text is not the Torah but rather a representation of the Torah. This representation occurs in two stages: conceptual and linguistic. I will illustrate this by the halakhic part of the Torah, namely the commandments, though the same can be done for the non-halakhic part (where it is even easier and more natural).
The first plane of representation is the linguistic one. The text of the Five Books linguistically represents the commandments—that is, it is their verbal formulation. In principle one could perhaps choose different formulations for the same content, and each would represent that content slightly differently. It may be that each such representation has a slightly different meaning (this depends on our assumptions about synonymous expressions). The commandment to honor one’s parents is formulated in the Torah as “Honor your father and your mother.” That formulation is a representation of the commandment’s content.
I wish to argue here that the commandments themselves, which the Torah’s wording represents, are also not the Torah. The commandments are a representation of a more abstract idea, and the Torah resides on that plane. For example, the commandment to honor parents—described above by a particular formulation in the biblical text—is itself only a certain garment of an abstract idea that is not necessarily connected to parents and honor. As we shall see, one implication is that this abstract idea can be relevant even to beings utterly different from us.
In column 220 I touched on representation at the first (linguistic) plane, and it seems that in my series of lessons on Torah and also in the lesson here I dealt mainly with the second (conceptual) plane. Here I wish to continue a bit with both planes, and in this column I will focus specifically on the second.
What is Torah?
The well-known midrash about Moses on high is brought in Shabbat 88b–89a:
And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: When Moses ascended to the heavens, the ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Master of the Universe, what is one born of woman doing among us?” He said to them: “He has come to receive the Torah.” They said before Him: “This precious treasure, hidden with You nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created—You seek to give it to flesh and blood? ‘What is man that You should remember him, and the son of man that You should take note of him? O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth—place Your splendor upon the heavens!’” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: “Return them an answer.” He said before Him: “Master of the Universe, I fear lest they burn me with the breath of their mouths.” He said to him: “Grasp My throne of glory and return them an answer,” as it is said: “He grasped the face of the throne, He spread His cloud upon it.” And Rabbi Nachum said: This teaches that the Almighty spread from the radiance of His Presence and His cloud over him. He said before Him: “The Torah You are giving me—what is written in it? ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt’—did you descend to Egypt, were you enslaved to Pharaoh, that the Torah should be yours? What else is written in it? ‘You shall have no other gods’—do you dwell among the nations who worship idolatry? What else is written in it? ‘Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it’—do you perform labor that you need rest? What else is written in it? ‘You shall not bear [the Name]’—is there business among you? What else is written in it? ‘Honor your father and your mother’—do you have a father and a mother? What else is written in it? ‘You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal’—is there jealousy among you; do you have an evil inclination?” Immediately they conceded to the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is said: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name…”—whereas “Place Your splendor upon the heavens” is not written.
The angels raise objections to bringing the Torah down to earth, and Moses is asked to answer them. His reply is seemingly obvious and self-evident, which raises the question: what did the angels even think? Do they have a father and mother? Do they steal or murder? Do they perform labor (selecting, writing, or plowing)? So what exactly did they do with this Torah until it was brought down to earth? It is no wonder that the midrash describes the angels, upon hearing Moses’ words, as immediately conceding to the Holy One. The question is: what were they thinking at the outset? Needless to say, this midrash is not a historical-factual description of a dialogue that actually took place between Moses and the angels. Precisely because of that, it is clear that the Sages, who wrote this midrash and placed these words in the mouths of the angels and Moses, were trying to tell us something through it. What exactly is the insight this midrash is meant to teach?
It seems to me that this midrash comes to teach us what Torah is. A person might think that Torah is the set of commandments and descriptive verses given to us in the text transmitted to Moses at Sinai. The midrash comes to say that this is not so. The angels, too, were engaged in Torah, even though they have no father or mother, they do no labor on the six days, they do not steal and they do not eat. So what is that Torah they studied? What was its content?
To clarify this, I will use an example.
What is “Zen”?
Eugen Herrigel was a German professor of philosophy who, during a sabbatical year he spent in Tokyo, asked a Japanese friend to introduce him to a Zen master so he could study with him. He wrote the book Zen in the Art of Archery, in which he describes his experiences and tries to convey to us, Western readers, the meaning of Zen.
At the beginning of the book he describes his first meeting with his master (I write from memory, so this is an inexact reconstruction of the details, though faithful to its spirit). The master asked him what he wanted to learn: flower arrangement, archery, or fencing? Herrigel answered: none of these—I came to learn Zen. The master persisted: yes, but through flower arrangement, or fencing, or archery? Herrigel discovered that he could choose the track by which he would progress, and that the choice of track had no principled importance. The very same thing is transmitted to him through archery, or through fencing, or through flower arrangement. The content conveyed does not pertain specifically to any of these domains, yet it passes through them. Each such domain is a medium through which the conceptual content called “Zen”—a certain mode of relating to the world—can be transmitted to us. It is a mode of relating that is hard to describe verbally, and apparently cannot be formulated in words as such. One must experience it through engagement with something else; choose a medium through which it can reach us. That medium can be archery, fencing, flower arrangement, or other areas of practice.
An example: What is logic?
In a certain sense this is similar to the discussion about logic. Aristotle is considered the one who first conceptualized logic and founded it as a field of study and research. It is quite clear that even before him people used logical tools of analysis. Everyone understood that if all chairs have four legs, then the chair before me also has four legs. Aristotle did not innovate or invent that. What he did was to notice that the same modes of inference and the same formal structures appear across different contexts of thought and discussion. Those very structures serve us in legal, literary, philosophical, mathematical, or Talmudic discourse. Before him, people were not aware that there were defined structures here, and they did not relate to them as such. They used their logical understanding without being aware of its very existence. Aristotle was the first to notice that there are universal structures here, and in particular that they are not tied to the contents within which we employed them. Logic is not part of law or literature or the Talmud, even though it is used in all of those fields.
Therefore, until the formal representations of logic were conceptualized, even if we had wanted to teach someone logic, we would have had to teach it through other content domains—demonstrating a logical argument via chairs and their legs. After the conceptualization, one can describe the logical rule itself detached from the contents in which it serves. For example, in the case of chairs: if every X is Y, and a is X, then a is Y. As is known, with the advance of logical formalization it turned out that one could even dispense with the words of connection (“if,” “is,” “every,” “then”) and replace them too with formal symbols.
All the domains I mentioned are kinds of media through which the logical material can be transmitted to us (to teach logic). But no one would say that they are logic. After Aristotle’s abstraction and conceptualization, it became clear to us that logic is an abstract field that exists in itself, yet can appear in all those media and serve us in them. Only after Aristotle’s abstraction and conceptualization did we understand that logic is itself a field that can be pursued as such. Before Aristotle, logic was perhaps part of language, but it was not seen as, in itself, a kind of claim about the world (this phrasing is of course not precise). They probably could not even have understood that there is a field called “logic.” Aristotle was the one who understood that logic is not only a tool used to handle ideas in various fields, but is itself a field of study and research. As part of his conceptualization he began creating the language and conceptual world within which we engage in this field to this day. In our time people research logic and do not only use it, and this became possible thanks to Aristotle. Moreover, it is impossible to imagine the development of the modern computer without Aristotle’s revolution. The computer is a tangible expression of the abstract object called “logic.” It is a concrete realization of abstract logical rules, and so long as we had not understood that there are such rules, we could not have conceived of a notion like “computer,” let alone built one.
What is all this about? Zen is parallel to logic in the sense that it too is a set of abstract ideas. One can employ them within the practice of flower arrangement or fencing, but flower arrangement or fencing are not Zen. Because it has ramifications in those domains, they can serve as media through which Zen can be taught—just as with logic. I dare to speculate that there may exist a language that would represent the ideas of Zen in words or in formal symbols, and then we would not necessarily need practical engagement in some medium in order to learn Zen. Such a language would allow us to learn and teach it in a frontal classroom, and perhaps also to investigate its meaning recursively and rigorously (that is, in a Western manner). However, in the context of Zen, the genius who succeeded in conceptualizing and creating such a language—the Aristotle of Zen—has not yet arisen, and so for now we have no way to do this. At this stage, Zen for us is an abstract category that cannot be described in words or even by ideas (the two levels of representation I spoke of earlier). It simply passes to us through various media, whose practice embeds it within us in some fashion.
Back to Torah: the plane of conceptual representation
By means of the analogies of Zen and logic, we can perhaps understand the midrash cited above—namely, what Torah is according to its description. My claim is that the midrash teaches that the abstract Torah is not the commandment of honoring parents (and certainly not the text that expresses it). That commandment is a medium through which more abstract ideas and insights—ones we have no way to describe in words—are transmitted to us. These are ideas that deal with honor or with parents, but in our world they have implications for parents and the proper attitude toward them. In my view, honoring parents is a representation of an abstract idea or ideas, and those are what truly deserve to be called “Torah.” Angels, like any other beings in any other world, can also engage in that Torah. Only, for them this set of abstract ideas takes on a different form and passes through a different medium (say, flower arrangement, rather than fencing or archery, which do not exist for them). Therefore, for them there is no commandment to honor parents and no prohibition of murder. These are the garments that Torah assumes in our human world, but they are not the Torah itself. In the angels’ world it dons other garments.
Note that this is not about the Torah’s linguistic representation. The text is the linguistic representation. But what does it represent? The commandments. Yet the commandments too are not the Torah, but a representation (or garment) of it in our world. The commandments are a conceptual representation of the Torah, and the biblical text is a linguistic representation of that conceptual representation, and through it also represents the abstract conceptual world—that is, the Torah. These are the two planes of representation I defined above.
The Torah as garment
Both the author of Tanya at the beginning of his book and the author of Nefesh Ha-Chaim at the beginning of Gate 4 speak of the Torah as the Holy One’s “garments.” Their intention is to say that the Torah represents the Holy One—or His will and insights—in our world. What they call “garments” are representations of the Torah, just as a person’s clothing is his representation outwardly (that is what someone looking from outside sees, though it is of course not the person himself). Note that this involves conceptual representation and not only linguistic representation. The commandment of honoring parents together with all the other commandments represents that abstract Torah. In that sense, the angels’ Torah is also a representation, only a different representation of that same abstract Torah. The abstract Torah as such (the Kantian phrasing here is not accidental) has no verbal formulation, for any formulation is a representation (even logical formalism); yet we have no way to apprehend it except through representations—each being in its world, in its language and conceptual universe.
When Moses receives the Torah, he of course receives a particular representation of it. It is a human representation that belongs to our world. It is indeed irrelevant to the angels, and therefore Moses’ reply calms them and they concede to the Holy One. They will continue to engage in Torah in the garment it assumes in their world, and they understood that what is descending to earth is not the Torah but a particular representation of it suited to the human realm. Thus the angels apparently realized that what they call “Torah” is a representation and not the Torah itself. When they grasp this, the dispute naturally subsides.
The Sages tell us in several midrashim that the Torah preceded the world, and their intention is apparently to that abstract, unformulated Torah—the one prior to the garments. The Torah that those garments clothe. It existed and remains in abstract realms—not with us and not with the angels. It preceded the world not only chronologically but essentially. The biblical text we received is its representation. Both angels and humans received the representation relevant to them, but none of these representations is the Torah as such. The angels’ mistake stems from an identification between signifier and signified, or between representation and the represented. This is the kind of error I discussed in column 376.
Torah study
This is likely the reason for the great value accorded to Torah study. Both the author of Tanya and Nefesh Ha-Chaim explain that when we study some law in Bava Kamma, we are not dealing with an ox that gores a cow. They explain that this is a piece of the Holy One (He and His will are one) that has clothed itself in this law, and our engagement with it is not only in order to know what to do in practice (for a “rebellious son” never was and never will be, and its study will not help us on the practical plane), but rather this is our way of cleaving to the Holy One. Just as the study of Zen is done through one of the practical domains, so too engagement with Torah must be done within one of its representations. Learning and performing the commandments is the medium through which we connect to the abstract Torah. In the background lies the assumption that the Torah is not an ox that gores a cow; that is the garment of what truly deserves to be called “Torah,” its conceptual representation—but it is our only way to cleave to that abstract thing, which is one with the Holy One. The author of Tanya, in chapter 4, describes this in a very detailed and beautiful manner, and therefore I will quote his words in full:
Moreover, every divine soul has three garments—thought, speech, and action—of the 613 commandments of the Torah. When a person performs in action all the practical commandments, and in speech occupies himself with the exposition of all the 613 commandments and their laws, and in thought apprehends all that he is able to apprehend in the Pardes of the Torah—then all the 613 components of his soul are clothed in the 613 commandments of the Torah; in particular, the ChaBaD (wisdom, understanding, knowledge) of his soul are clothed in his apprehension of the Torah that he apprehends in the Pardes, according to the capacity of his apprehension and the root of his soul above. And the attributes—fear and love and their offshoots and derivatives—are clothed in the observance of the commandments in action and in speech, which is Torah study that is equal to them all. For love is the root of all 248 positive commandments, from which they are drawn, and without it they have no true standing, for one who truly fulfills them is he who loves the name of the Lord and desires to cleave to Him in truth; and it is impossible to cleave to Him in truth except through the fulfillment of the 248 precepts, which are the 248 “organs” of the King, as explained elsewhere. And fear is the root of the 365 prohibitions, for one fears to rebel against the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He; or an inner fear beyond this—that one is ashamed of His greatness to affront before His eyes and to do what is evil in His eyes—all the abominations of the Lord which He hates are the kelipot and the sitra achra, whose nurture and hold upon the lower human being is through the 365 prohibitions.
Now these three garments from the Torah and its commandments, although they are called “garments” of the nefesh-ruach-neshamah, nevertheless their rank and greatness exceed without end the rank of the nefesh-ruach-neshamah themselves. As the Zohar says: “The Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one,” meaning: the Torah is His wisdom and will, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and Essence, is entirely one with them, for “He is the Knower, and He is the Knowledge,” etc., as Maimonides wrote.
And although the Holy One is called Ein Sof—His greatness is unsearchable—and no thought can grasp Him at all, so too His will and wisdom, as it is written: “There is no searching of His understanding,” and “Can you find the probing of God?” and “My thoughts are not your thoughts”—yet concerning this they said: “Where you find the greatness of the Holy One, there you find His humility.” For the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His will and wisdom into the 613 commandments of the Torah and their laws, and into the combinations of the letters of the Tanakh and their expositions in the Aggadot and Midrashim of our Sages, so that every soul—or ruach or nefesh—within a human body would be able to apprehend them with its understanding, and to fulfill as much as possible of them in action, speech, and thought; and thereby it would be clothed, in all its ten faculties, within these three garments.
Therefore the Torah is compared to water: just as water descends from a high place to a low place, so the Torah descended from the place of its glory—which is His will and wisdom, and “the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one,” and no thought can grasp Him at all—and from there it journeyed and descended, in hidden gradations, from level to level in the chain of worlds, until it clothed itself in physical matters and affairs of this world—which are the majority of the commandments of the Torah, almost all of them—and their laws, and in the combinations of physical letters, with ink upon parchment, in the twenty-four books of Torah, Prophets, and Writings, in order that every thought may grasp them; and even speech and action, which are beneath the level of thought, may grasp them and be clothed in them. And since the Torah and its commandments clothe all ten faculties of the soul and all its 613 parts, from its head to its foot—behold, it is entirely bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord Himself, and the light of the Lord literally surrounds and clothes it from head to foot, as it is written: “My Rock, in whom I take refuge,” and “With favor You crown him as with a shield”—that is, His will and wisdom vested in His Torah and commandments.
Therefore they said: “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come,” for the World to Come is where they delight in the radiance (ziv) of the Shekhinah—that is the delight of apprehension—and no created being, even of the supernal ones, can apprehend more than some ray of the light of the Lord; hence it is called “radiance of the Shekhinah.” But the Holy One, blessed be He, in His glory and Essence—no thought can grasp Him at all, except when it grasps and is clothed in the Torah and its commandments; then it grasps and is clothed in the Holy One Himself, for “the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one.”
And although the Torah has clothed itself in lowly, physical matters, it is like embracing the king, by way of example: there is no difference in the degree of one’s closeness and cleaving to the king whether one embraces him when he is wearing one garment or many garments, since the king’s body is within them. So too, if the king embraces him with his arm—even though it is within his garments—as it is said, “And His right hand embraces me,” which is the Torah that was given from the right, which is the aspect of kindness and water.
The sentences emphasized in the passage above describe the two levels of representation we are dealing with here: conceptual representation and linguistic representation. If the commandment to honor parents is a garment (representation) of abstract ideas, then the specific formulation it received in the Torah is itself a linguistic representation of that conceptual representation—and thus we have arrived at the plane of linguistic representation.
In the closing sentences here he writes that embracing the king through his garments is an embrace of the king himself. We should not fear that engagement with a representation is not engagement with the Torah. There is no way to touch the Torah other than through its representations, and this is the representation given to us (our “flower arrangement,” as it were).
By way of analogy, consider a common error of many interpreters of Kant, who explain his doctrine as though he points to a limitation of ours and of our capacities. They claim that according to Kant we have no possibility of apprehending the thing-in-itself (the noumenon) but only its appearances to us (the phenomenon), and this is because we are limited. But this is a mistake. Apprehension, by definition, is the introducing of the object apprehended into the categories of the apprehender. Therefore apprehension is always done through representation. This is not a limitation but follows from the very essence of apprehension as such.
Thus, for example, there is no point in asking what the “true color” of the table before me is. Some claim that I see it as brown only due to the constraints of my cognition (our brain distinguishes between several colors because of the structure of its receptors, which translate electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths into different colors). So what is its true color? This is a question based on misunderstanding. The table has no true color. Color is the phenomenon that arises in our cognition when an electromagnetic wave strikes the retina of our eye. Without an eye and without a visual processing mechanism there are no colors; therefore the table as such has no color. Color exists only in the perceiving cognition.
A similar example is the well-known question about a tree falling in a forest: if no one is there to listen, does it make a sound? People scoff at this question and tend to see it as a skeptical exercise (as though what we see does not exist when we do not observe it). But this is a mistake. It is clear that the falling tree does not make a sound unless there is an eardrum upon which the acoustic waves it produces impinge. Sound does not exist “in the world.” In the world there are acoustic waves, and when they strike the eardrum they create within our cognition what we call “sound” (exactly as in the example of color). Therefore, the answer is that when a tree falls in a forest it does not make a sound; it only creates an acoustic wave. There is nothing skeptical here, nor any controversial philosophical hypothesis. It is a simple fact.
And so it is with all our apprehensions. Our perceptions of the world are described in the conceptual framework and through the structure of our cognition. Through color we apprehend the crystalline structure of the table, which is something that exists in the world itself; but any description of that structure will always be given in terms of our cognition and has no meaning in the world as such. Color and sound are the garments or representations of the phenomena that exist in the world itself.[1] This is precisely what the author of the Tanya argues at the end of his words: one who embraces the king through his garments is as one who embraces the king himself.
[1] An interesting question is whether this is a conceptual or a linguistic representation (visual or auditory “language” is also a kind of language). The boundary between these two is not sharp, but the distinction is still useful and instructive.
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Michael,
You say: 'The commandments are a representation of a more abstract idea, and the Torah is on this plane.'
It is easy to agree with such an approach to honoring parents. Try applying it to the prohibition of enjoying slices of bread with cheese and sausage…
Whatever the abstract ideas represented by the commandments, in everyday life their existence leads to foolish, and sometimes evil, behavior.
Miracles
It's a misunderstanding of the whole thing. You have no way of knowing what those abstract ideas are, and you certainly can't judge them by their clothing. Even a flower arrangement can seem like silly behavior on its face, and yet you can still learn about Zen ideas through it. How is that different from the kata of not eating meat with milk?!
You can't decide that this is silly behavior without understanding what it is. And for evil behavior, see column 15 (and at greater length at the beginning of the third book in my trilogy).
On the 4th of Nisan 25, 2017,
To the Miracles, Greetings,
Right after the Mount Sinai stand where the Ten Commandments were given to the people, God calls Moses and commands him with a set of commandments that are a detail and expansion of the Ten Commandments. Moses writes the Book of the Covenant, making a covenant with the people to ascend the mountain for forty days to receive a complete explanation of the Torah. The Book of the Covenant was changed to a shorter form following the breaking of the covenant in the act of the calf.
Interestingly, both the first Book of the Covenant (in the section of Mishpatim) and the second Book of the Covenant in the section of Ki-Tishab end with the commandment, "First of all, you shall bring the firstfruits of your land to the house of God." God, you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. Man rules over the world, he sows and grows fruit from the earth, and he rules over the living world and even has the authority to slaughter animals and feed them.
The earth's control over the earth, over the animals and plants – is liable to lead him to pride, to the thought that I am the owner of the world and who will tell me ‘what will you do’. This feeling of pride came to give these commandments. He will bring the first of the firstfruits of the fruit of his land to the house of the ’ God and there he will say to the priest ‘Aram Obi and came down from Egypt, etc.’, there the successful farmer will admit that he began his ’career’ as a humiliated and tortured slave, and only by the grace of the ’ was he able to leave his servitude and settle in his good land.
Even in exercising his supremacy over the living world, a supremacy that allowed him to eat both the meat and the milk of animals, the Torah demands some restraint and restraint from him. Do not devour the “mother over her children.” Enjoy yourself only in moderation. Know that you are not the master of the world. Even in your eating, you will feel like a guest of the true “master of the house,” a guest who is not allowed to take “from whatever comes to hand.”
It is worth noting that the last commandment in the Book of the Covenant, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” is an excellent practice for the most difficult commandment, “You shall not covet.” Whoever manages to curb his appetite and not reach for the ’perfect steak’, which combines the tenderness of goat meat with the fat of milk. The same wonderful delicacy with which the great host honored his guests, by serving them ‘butter and milk’ together with ‘soft and good beef’ – will give up the ’top of the top’ culinary, and thus will get used to living a life of restraint and self-restraint’, as stated: ‘hard in training –easy in battle’.
Best regards, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
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… Makes a covenant with the people and goes up to the mountain…
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Man's dominion over the earth…
*
In the book of the Bani-San Tashaf
And for those who have difficulty with non-verbal thinking, we will add a brief verbal explanation.
The signifier of our method is the asterisk * – which has a central point that sends 5 rays in all directions - up, to the sides and down, the asterisk denotes the being of man: the head, hands and feet. The head – expresses the intellectual ability of man; the hands – his ability to act and create; and the feet – which express the ability of man to choose his place in the world, his ability to leave the limits of ’here’ and move towards new and unknown places.
When a man builds himself as a ’asterisk’ – All levels of man – thinking, doing and moving – are connected to a central point, to the heart that thirsts for a constant divine presence, which will guide man to make the right choice in his thoughts, actions and movements. The 3 commandments accompany man in every step he takes and in every point in time he is in. At every step and stage he is required to think: What does God require of me at this stage? And so he ‘lives with God; in every moment, connected and bound to his God and his instructions, and thus connected to his central point.
With the blessing of ‘Aviv Kochavi’
Ching Ching Ching Ish Le-Wing
‘Zen in His Mercy’ Institute, Kochha-HaShachar
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… The asterisk symbolizes his being…
We are blessed to have such a brilliant philosopher-rabbi in our nation!
Great column. Just a question.
As far as I understand, the rabbi claims that Kant's division between the phenomenon and the naumena is not a limitation of the perceiver of the phenomenon. (Since this is his only tool to experience the naumena in itself).
But as far as I understand, the fact that I do not perceive the thing in itself directly (I cannot do this without clothing, i.e.: phenomenon), means that I really cannot talk about it in itself. And it turns out that all my talk is only about the phenomenon, and that means that there is a huge probability that I missed so much of the naumena.
So Sue, the division of naumena and phenomenon is *yes* a limitation of the perceiver of the phenomenon! * After all, he certainly misses the point in itself, so much, certainly (if we talk about Zen, we can say that even those who learn Zen through fencing, or Zen through archery, both alike can never speak about Zen in itself, but only about its clothing. And the clothing, as the clothing is, is partial by definition, of the big picture.
And they cannot argue and have a sharp debate about Zen in itself, but only about the derived feeling of Zen clothing).
The fact that we have no other way to perceive reality is not a limitation. This is what is called perceiving reality. Perception is always the introduction of the perceived into the tool of the perceiver. The question of what the true color of a thing is meaningless because it does not have a ‘true’ color is found only in our tool of cognition.
This does not mean that it is not possible to make a mistake in perception. Of course there is. It just means that the mistake is not structured and does not necessarily derive from the limitation of the phenomenon versus the noumena. Partial perception is certainly a source of errors, but not because of the relationship between phenomenon and noumena but because of partiality. Theoretically, it is possible to perceive the whole phenomenon or part of the noumena (if there were such a thing as ‘perceiving a noumena’).
Hi
I didn't understand whether your claim about the Torah as a text and the two levels of representation (a kind of Platonism) is a claim of fact or not.
Are you claiming that this is how the Torah is really structured? That the text is just an external expression of a deeper reality?
If your answer to this is positive, I didn't find any justification for this in the column (beyond the opinions of the sages or the author of the Tanya).
On the 5th of Nisan 5751
To Doron, Greetings,
The Torah defines in several places the purpose of its giving and gives all kinds of purposes that seem like abstract ideas that are very difficult to define verbally,
What is, for example, “and a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”? What is “be holy, for I am holy”? What is “to love the Lord your God and to cleave to Him”? What is “and you will be a special gift to me”? What is “a great nation whose God is near to it”? What is “the light of the Lord’s face toward you”? What is ‘He will lift up His face to you and instruct you’? What is ‘He will bless the Sabbath and sanctify it’?
It is clear that these descriptions express qualities and mental states that the system of commandments tries to lead a person to, beyond ’halachic technocracy’ 🙂 And it is clear that it is difficult to give such states and mental states an exhaustive verbal definition.
With greetings, Ot’Peron Nafishitim HaLevi
First, I explain the words of Chazal. I have no other source to learn about the essence of the Torah. This also arises from the importance given to learning, which is not just a means to know what to do. Therefore, some of the latter (I cited two) explained that it is a way to become attached to God. It is unlikely that this attachment is from dealing with bulls and thieves.
On the 5th of Nissan 5217
Ramada”a – Shalom Rav,
I think that in the opinion of the author of the Tanya and Nefesh HaChaim, not only thinking about the abstract idea that is the basis of the Halacha, but also dealing with the technical details of the oxen and the thieves are part of adhering to it, since their meaning is that ’He, the Blessed One, His wisdom and His will’ are – one’, it is found that clarifying the Halacha detail is actually the understanding that in such and such a situation – the wisdom and will of the Creator require such and such.
In the words of Nefesh HaChaim in particular, this seems to be proven, since he explicitly says that contemplating the greatness of ’ It should only take a few minutes, after which the mind is immersed for long hours in the complicated halakhic discussion, literally. The learner must be focused on the technical study before him and not on the ideas and the upper sefirot.
The essential difference between the adherent and the non-adherent is in the mental attitude when studying the details of the details. This would be the difference between a supermarket employee (superman Bela”z 🙂 who receives a ‘shopping list’ from an anonymous customer, and the loving husband who receives a ‘shopping list’ given to him by his dear wife. The act is the same act, but the difference in the inner feeling is profound.
Best regards, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
And beyond the philosophical insight that ’is His will and wisdom – one’ – there is a great virtue in clarifying the law, through which we find the right way to establish peace between many people who argue, based on truth and justice. A judge who judges truth for truth – is a true partner with the Creator of the world, for he brings the world to a sweet state, a state of peace and truth..
With blessings, Yafa”r
Mikhi,
Well, we return to our old argument.
I have argued in this context in the past that the Torah as a text (or a body of knowledge in a broader sense) bears a character that you would call “analytic”. Instead of establishing a clear hierarchy that gives primacy to the intuitive ability in man, it places the language of the text, the wording that appears in the Pentateuch, at the center. According to its method, the central (and in practice also the only) channel of mediation between man and metaphysical reality is itself.
Therefore, my argument is not against the notion that there is an abstract essence behind the text. There may be. The argument is that the Torah does not allow us to think so.
I have previously brought here the “criticism group” from the competing religious tradition - Christianity. In Christianity there are no “holy scriptures” In the same sense that Judaism has, because its founding text first directs the believer to his intuitive abilities (in Christian language this would be called faith or the feelings of the heart or something like that) and only then brings the institutionalized social imperative into the picture.
Hamra and Chai to Pom Maria who says and does. Very interesting. I'm not sure I understood exactly, so I'll try to phrase it in a slightly different way, so that if it's synonymous, what's good? If not, please correct me. If there are two different representations, it means that there is an additional level of abstraction and the two representations are analogous in different fields. As in mathematics, where theorems have generalizations above each other, and each theorem from a higher level of abstraction applies to more cases and fields, and the lower levels of abstraction are its own private cases, and when you go up in the level of abstraction, you can also project it to fields that currently seem different (for example, the fundamental law of the Hadith < Green's law < Gauss' law < Stokes' law). For example, there is a law in the Torah that the priest sees a taint in the house and goes out and reports it. This is a private case of the general principle of the Hezka of the Ishmaelites, and this general principle can be tried to be grasped with reason. Now I understand that you are saying that there is another stage, and that this principle itself is a special case of an even more abstract principle, and that this abstract principle, "A'g Da'ihu Or Tzach Or Metzachach Ochma," is also about the principle above it, and so on. After taking out the frying pans from the guru and dealing with abstract principles of the first order, they also came out and it is possible to deal with abstract principles of the second and third order and beyond. If I understood correctly, then in substance it sounds logical to me, but essentially it is an unverifiable claim (with a somewhat conspiratorial scent) that all our thoughts can be perceived at a higher level of abstraction/generalization, because everything we achieve may always have more levels above it.
By the way, the Song of Songs is commonly interpreted as a parable about the relationship between God and Israel, but Malbim interprets it as not just a parable that a parable is likened, but a parable that a parable is likened to a parable. When I thought about it once, I came to the dry conclusion that I don't understand what the benefit of a parable is, and that one can always go directly from the parable to the parable. But I no longer had the strength to carefully examine the interpretation there (which in my opinion was a very beautiful creation by Malbim, although I usually shy away from his interpretations) and try to see what we would be missing if it were just a parable and a parable. And I kept thinking that it was just an aesthetic matter of not representing something subtle with something too coarse. But from Malbim's wording there, I got the impression that he thinks that in this hierarchy of representations there is more than the aesthetic matter mentioned. [From what I remember roughly and briefly without obligation - Solomon loves a woman who is seeking another wonderful David. And this is a parable that the body tries to seduce the intellect that is seeking understanding. And the parable is that in spiritual levels, many forces are trying to achieve the Knesset of Israel that is seeking to connect with God].
On the 4th of Nissan 25th of September 2017
To the Tula Deginta, greetings,
Without the parable, which is a common and familiar situation, it is almost impossible to understand the parable. And has anyone ever seen a person, as Maimonides describes, who is contemplating the wonders of creation, burning with a strong desire to know God, until it never leaves him, and he is like someone in love with a woman who is constantly mistaken in her love.
Many people experience the phenomenon of the parable, and they also show it strongly outwardly. Few immigrants reach such love for the Creator, and their mental state at the time of their love is mature and ripe, in which all the passion and passion is internal and hardly ever revealed outwardly. Only rarely does the inner passion emerge. Without this expression in the description of the love of God, And the words in the introduction to the teacher about the lightning that illuminates the human soul – I would have been impressed by reading most of the Maimonides”s words that he was a cold and emotionless rationalist, with no idea of the storm raging within the heart.
In my youth, I attended a class given by Prof. Isaiah Leibowitz at the Beit Yosef synagogue in Barsaco on Maimonides”s explanation of the story of the Garden of Eden. One of the listeners, Rabbi Shmuel Segal, commented: ‘Well, Maimonides was a rationalist’, Leibowitz looked at him and said: ‘Maimonides was a rationalist? Maimonides was a mystic” Leibowitz said and was right.
But more than that, from the sages of Hasidism and Rabbi Kook, he learned that all the loves and passions in man are nothing but a derivative of the soul's desire to cling to its root, to the source of life. In particular, the love of one for another and the love of one for one's spouse, in which man feels the existential need to connect to what is beyond him.
With blessings, Amioz Yaron Schnitzel
The Rabbi of Kotzk asked if Jonathan ben Uziel had burned every bird that flew above him - what about his rabbi Hillel, who was greater than his student. The rabbi replied that the rabbi knew more than the student. The rabbi knew how to keep the passion inside, so that it would not break out.
You explain nicely that the parable is taken from familiar things and has a benefit, but where is the explanation (and example) of what is the benefit of a chain of parables instead of one parable directly to the parable?
On the 5th of Nissan 5th of Sha'ban
Lt.G. Hello,
What the author means by his words about the necessity of a 'chain of parables', I am not sure I understand, so I will not take responsibility for speculating about the interpretation of his words.
In any case, it seems to me too that a powerful mental phenomenon cannot be understood with a single explanation, because the phenomenon is large and complex, multifaceted and multifaceted, and sometimes they are contradictory
The parable of the dwarfs who found an elephant is well known. Some will describe with admiration the solid pillars. Some the fluttering sails, some the large pipe showering water, and some will describe the sharp and shining horns. Each one grasps a part of a large and complex picture.
Even the feelings between a man and his wife cannot be described in a single parable. The uncle, in the human sense, may at the same time be the simple boy from the desert, charming in his innocent simplicity, and at the same time he is also King Solomon, charming in his wisdom and ability to solve complicated and intricate problems.
And the wife can also be the playful daughter who enjoys her games, and at the same time invests them in paternal concern for her well-being and health. And sometimes she is the comforting and calming mother., and sometimes she is like a sister with whom you can have a conversation at eye level, sometimes with admiring listening and sometimes with arguments to the heart of heaven..
The mutual connection includes both longing and pain when they are not together and also calm because they know that they can trust each other. Even when a great distance separates them.
So if the human phenomenon of love between people is always complex and full of pain – How true these things are in the cause of causes and the cause of causes, that on the one hand, the mind comprehends everything in its entirety, and on the other hand, His wisdom and goodness, His strictness and forgiveness are evident at every step.
The complexity is what necessitates the multitude of parables, and after all, we are as far away as heaven and earth from a full understanding.
With blessings, Yeshimcha Fishel Halevi Plankton
From the explanation of the vision for the uniqueness of the wisdom of fear of God from other wisdoms, including probably the wisdom of the Talmud, in other wisdoms the wisdom becomes knowledge that can be explained with a clear verbal explanation. While the wisdom of fear cannot be explained in words, since someone who has not gone through the mental process himself does not really understand what is being discussed.
According to this distinction, it is possible to understand the need for the wisdom of fear in parables that bring understanding closer to the required mental process.
With greetings, Yafa'r
To Tolginus, a response that I was asked to convey to you:
Greetings!
The Malbim, in his wonderful commentary on the Song of Songs, claims that Solomon described his personal life with his experiences in the revelations of God to him, through a parable with a beloved wife who is in love with David, and runs away from him in order to make love with the David. Thus, Solomon's soul is loved by his body, but runs away from time to time to meet with God. This is a description of five meetings of the wife and the David, or on the allegorical level of Solomon's soul with God.
The Malbim claims that despite his commentary, it is still not clear why this personal and private description should be included in the Holy Scriptures, and therefore he comes to the conclusion that Solomon's life itself is nothing more than an expression of the encounters of the entire nation with the glory of God throughout history. In this way, the poem is taken from its personal meaning to a broader national meaning.
Thus, it is not a parable for a parable, but rather it is possible that King Solomon himself intended only to describe his own mystical experiences, and did so in an allegorical manner, but the sages of Israel who included this description in the Holy Scriptures – found national significance in it.
Throughout the book of Malabim, he interprets the earthly parable (Solomon wants a wife who wants David) in parallel with the prophetic parable (Solomon's body wants to conquer his soul who wants prophecy) and then at the end of the book of Malabim he says that this parable is itself a parable for a more secret parable (something wants to conquer the Knesset of Israel who wants the ). I asked why the mediation of the middle parable is needed, and I understand that you answer that in order to reach the secret parable, the mediation of the middle parable is not needed and that Solomon only meant the earthly parable and the prophetic parable without the secret parable, and the secret parable was invented by those who came after him. This is fine of course, but it does not seem to me that it touches on the words of Malabim. In any case, it is not clear what exactly Malabim interpreted.
This is his language in the article The Deaf and the Frame: “The interpretation that I read under the name of Melitza (the prophetic parable) is the outer story of this sublime poem and is the parable in truth, as I will explain. And the interpretation that I read under the name of Meshal (the earthly parable) is its outer shell… The Melitza is a parable to the hidden secrets in the sacred poem, and the parable is a parable to the parable, clothing to the clothing”.
By the way, the interpretation there is truly wonderful and creative, but of course the connection between it and the truth is tenuous. Melibi”m continues the traditional commentators in trying to interpret the Song of Songs as a single narrative sequence (‘dramatic interpretation’) and, relative to Rashi and Rabbah, he re-states that there are three figures (Solomon, Reya, and David) versus two, in order to explain the sudden flashes of mention of Solomon here and there. But it seems to me much more likely to interpret this book as all torn-up fragments of scattered poems, as less traditional commentators have concluded, and so when I put on my critical glasses I don't think this interpretation is wonderful. It's simply beautiful, like a brilliant dictum or a historical fantasy story that manages to fit itself in among the hard historical facts.
The extension to infinity is your addition. Maybe so, maybe not. But you are certainly right that these things cannot be directly examined by us. See my reply to Doron above.
I am not sure that representation and realization are the same thing. Realization is like the relationship between a law and a model in mathematics. It is a particular case of the general. Representation seems to me to be something slightly different, because it does not necessarily involve a transition from the general to the particular, but rather from the abstract to the concrete, and the concrete is also a medium and not a representation of the thing itself. Think about the chairs argument that I brought as a realization of the syllogistic logical structure. It is not a representation of it but a realization of it.
Regarding the chain of parables, sometimes the distance between the first parable and the final parable is too great and it will be difficult to understand the connection, so we do it in a chain of closer links.
This is a big deal for me and I wrote a whole megilla, but actually it's better to ask questions first. What is the relationship between Cohen and Beit Menocha regarding the assumption of the demi-Kara? What is the relationship between a one-dimensional sentence (the basic one of the Hado'a) and its generalization to a two-dimensional sentence (Green)? What is the relationship between a sentence (for example, the basic one) and its operation (on a concrete function).
Regarding the chain of proverbs, I'm looking for an example. For years, I've been 'planning' to go back to the commentary of the Malbim there and see if there's a convincing example there for the need for a chain of proverbs, but laziness is getting in the way. Because if nowhere else (that I've come across and remember) does a chain of proverbs not use it, then it's probably really unnecessary.
A house with a mangled roof is an example of an inference. That is, it is a realization, not a representation. The principle of an inference is the logic that is demonstrated through a house with a mangled roof. After we have conceptualized the concept of inference, there is no need for the example of a mangled roof again to learn it. It is like the example of chairs for general inference (every X is Y and a is X, so a is Y).
Perhaps Soritas is a good example of such a chain (of course not exactly the same). See Eruvin Na and Mida Tova, 5621;5 p. In the file:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7IRmM4RGd0dG9zWU0
And the continuation from 2006:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7IRmM4RGd0dG9zWU0
It is not for nothing that the stacking paradox in English is called the Sorites paradox: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/
Now I remembered that it could also be related to the chain that is described in a good way, Tashsa, P’ Kadoshim: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7IRmM4RGd0dG9zWU0
This is even closer.
In the articles in the 2015-16 issue (files 16|70 in the folder), you dealt with a series of sermons regarding the Sabbath. The series of sermons there is from place to place and from place to place, from border to border outside [No one shall go out of his place on the seventh day – and I have appointed for you a place to which he may flee – and if the murderer goes beyond the border of his city of refuge to which he may flee – and the blood liberator finds him outside the border – outside the city two thousand cubits].
Everything is beautiful and interesting and provides good tools for thought. But in the articles there, there is a more formal approach to this sermon. It seems that the assumption is that they could have done a sermon to the same extent as in Genesis – the beginning of the firstfruits of your land – the firstfruits of the wheat harvest – wheat and barley and vines – in my dream, and behold, a vine, and to teach that all of creation is one great dream of God. And the sages did not do so because it was not a useful reference or they did not accept it in tradition. But simply put, this is not so. In the sermon of Tecumin, we do not just learn words (“semantic transitions”) but there is one essential content that runs like a thread between the studies, and it is the clarification of the boundaries of the ”place” through its alternative definitions.
The perception is that the Sabbath area is not a special law in the laws of the Sabbath but a derivative of the general perception of the boundaries of the city. Therefore, one can learn from the boundaries of the Levite cities (what they are given) to the boundaries of the city of refuge (where the murderer has protection) and to the boundaries of the Sabbath area. The boundaries of the city of refuge define the inside and the outside – where the murderer enters when he flees and where the blood avenger goes out if he goes out so that he can avenge him. And these boundaries are defined to be two thousand cubits. And just as the city is the “place” of the murderer, so is the city the “place” of every person for every matter and especially regarding the issue of the Sabbath area. This is a logical interpretive sermon that deals entirely with clarifying one concept of place through its various definitions or implications: the boundary of the place, where we flee, what is outside, an area that is attached to a city – all of these are alternative definitions for the same concept itself, whose implications in any case concern the issue of Levitical cities and cities of refuge and the Sabbath area. And it is as explained.
You burst into an open door. That's exactly why I directed you there, because it's understandable that there are also substantial analogies behind these images. And so this is an example of a chain of analogies like the one you were looking for. If it were just a formal verbal comparison, it wouldn't be an example of what you're looking for.
Ah. Although there is no chain there (the configuration of a line) but different projections from the center (the configuration of an asterisk *). The field of expansion of a place has different projections (where do we go, what is outside, what is the boundary, how much area is added, and the domain of the Sabbath) and each of them indicates the field of expansion. Now that we know a numerical value for one of the projections, it indicates all the other projections of the same concept anyway.
In the 9th month of the From this insight that ’Beginning’ is also its part of Kadima Be Maale – Chazal explained ‘Bereshit Bara Elohim’ in the sense of ‘through the beginning’ or for the beginning’, that the physical world was created in order to carry out an idea, which is the ’first thought’ for which the world was created, and therefore they interpreted ’Beginning’ as the Torah or Israel. ‘Beginning’ which is a purpose.
With blessings, Amioz Yaron Schnitzel’R
Perhaps it can be said that the beginning of the creation of reality is the gap between ‘Heaven’ and the 'Earth', between the sky that expresses the idea one aspires to, and the earth that is in a state of 'chaos and confusion' awaiting clarification and arrangement that will bring the idea to fruition.
On the 25th of Nissan 25th
Further to what I suggested (in the last paragraph) that the separation between the ‘heaven’ and the ’earth’ symbolizes the gap between the idea and its implementation in reality – it can be said that on the second day it was not said ‘And God saw that it was good’, because on this day the partition separating the waters above the firmament from the waters below the firmament was created.
The first time the concept ‘not good’ is mentioned in the Torah, is in the creation of man as an individual, about whom his Creator said: ‘It is not good that man should be alone’ from which the conclusion ‘I will make him a helper suitable for him’ is sought. Man was created in a state of ‘not good’, in a state of loneliness to create a longing for the complementary connection with his ‘other half’.
And so on the second day – it seemed that day that the fertile firmament brought about a complete separation between the upper and lower waters. But the next day it became clear that this separation was not hermetic. As soon as the additional separation between the sea and the land was created – the way was paved for the ’water cycle’ that would bring about a connection of mutual fertilization between the upper and lower waters.
From the upper waters, rain would fall that would saturate the earth, its plants and animals, and some of the water would flow to the sea and from there evaporate and return ‘up’. Later, on the fourth day, the change of seasons will be created, which will create a cycle of rainy days in which the upper ones flow water downward, and hot days, which are increased evaporation of sea water upward.
On the fifth and sixth days, animals will be created, which will inhale oxygen and nutrients from the plants, and contribute carbon dioxide to the plants and provide fertilization and dilution services. The constant metabolism – will lead to the constant maintenance of balance in nature.
And on the sixth day, man will also arrive, who will integrate natural life into his being together with the guiding spirit, and he will be entrusted with the proper management of the world. The natural, and at the same time its cultivation and perfection, from a natural ’ field ’ to a cultivated and well-kept ’ garden. And from ’ good ’ the world will progress to ’ very good ’. – Goodness is what increases.
Best regards, Yaron Fish”l Ordner
In paragraph 1, line 1
… that the division between ‘heaven’…
In paragraph 3, line 1
…that the dividing firmament brought
In paragraph 6, line 1
… man who will integrate into his being…
A. How is an idea related to heaven? I think this is a rather late terminology.
B. The rest of the interactions and cycles you described (the life cycle that includes nature, living things, plants, and animals, as The Lion King played well with) I didn't understand how you connected this to the combination of an idea and an action.
C. You said in a nutshell that man alone is not good, and in the end, that the man who adds an idea to the lacking nature is promoting himself to the good. What is the meaning?
To the Tz ” A Guten Tag
A. The heavens are heavens for Him, and the earth He gave to men. The Torah – the ’idea’ -descends from heaven to earth so that man may apply it in the material world.
B. There is also mutual fertilization between the idea and reality. After all, when the Torah must be applied in the conditions of complex reality – one encounters many problems and complications that require man to deepen his understanding of the Torah in order to provide an answer to the complications of the developing reality.
C. I spoke of three levels: A. ‘Man is not good alone. B. ‘Good’ in the complementary and fruitful connection between man and his ’other half’. C. ‘Very good’ (‘Very’ = ‘Multiplicity’), in the fruitful connection between the developing spirit and natural reality, tends towards inertia.
With greetings, Tag [Tabya al-Ghazali]
C. I didn't read it carefully.
If you want an example from mathematics, then a representation is the relationship between a representative of an equivalence class (induced by some equivalence relation) and the class of which it is a member.
Even though the relationship between the representative and the class is exactly the relationship between each member of the class and the class and there is nothing special about the representative? When there is representation with respect to a certain operation, it means that the operation between any two represented always brings the result of the operation between the two representatives. For example, the equivalence relation modulo 3 divides the integers into equivalence classes and we take for example the number 5 as a representative of the class “remainder equals 2” with respect to the operation “add modulo 3”. Can you put into words the meaning of representation here?
It seems to me that the representative from the equivalence class is a realization or implementation and not a representation in the sense I am talking about. The equivalence class itself is a representation of the equivalence relation that induces it. Kind of like Frege's definition of the number n as the collection of sets containing n elements. I have never understood how this is a definition of the concept of number. The collection of these sets is not a number but an equivalence class. I would call it a representation and not a definition.
This is essentially the difference between induction and abduction. Induction is a transition from realization (a private example) to a general law. Abduction is a transition from a private realization to a theory (not phenomenological, descriptive, but a substantive theory). The collection of private cases is a representation of the law of nature. But the private case in relation to the collection of private cases is a realization, not a representation.
Now I think I elaborated on this in my books on the Spirit of Law, where I distinguished between particularization and realization.
See my response to Tolginus.
When performing modulo 7 addition operations, for example, to explain to someone how this thing works, you need to use the addition of representatives from the classes. The abstract addition rules of equivalence classes mean nothing to someone who has not experienced the individual addition rules. And maybe that is what the Rabbi meant here when he said, “The equivalence class itself is a representation of the equivalence relation that inspires it.” Therefore, this distinction does not seem sharp enough to me. Even when we say that a particular is a realization of some rule, it also means that through it we grasp the rule (we grasp something from the rule. In the particular, there is a reflection and appearance of the rule to which it belongs (the rule can be seen through it). So in this sense, it is also a representation of it). After all, this is the whole meaning of giving an example in order to explain something. An example is a concretization.
In short, what I am saying is that an element in an equivalence class is a concretization of the abstract entity that is the equivalence class to which it belongs.
And even more briefly, I claim that there is no such thing as a rule that is nothing more than the sum of its parts (parts are not just collected into arbitrary rules (collections). They have something in common that makes me include them together in the first place. According to what criterion are they collected?). In such a situation, the rule is an entity in itself, and it is impossible to perceive it other than through its parts. Therefore, they also constitute representations of it.
To Tolginus
Yes. It is indeed a bit of a delicate matter (I am not sure that this distinction between Rav Michi's terminology between realization and representation actually exists. Anything that exists in an example of one of them can also be shown to exist in some sense in an example of the other). The assumption is that it will be difficult for you to explain to someone who has not experienced the equivalence relation before an operation between abstract equivalence classes (for example, the addition of the class of 5 modulo 7 with the class of 4 modulo 7, say (the collection of equivalence classes constitutes a quotient group of the group of natural numbers with respect to the addition). You need to use concrete examples to explain how equivalence classes can be added. In your example, for example, we add 5 and 7 and get 12, which is 0 modulo three. And this represents the addition of 2 modulo 3 with 1 modulo 3, which is equal to 3 modulo 3, which is actually 0 modulo 3, and these are all the equivalence classes of the equivalence relation modulo 3.
A. In terms of my nature, I think it's not a matter of explanation but of definition. In the quotient group, you can define a connection operation between classes using a connection operation in the original group between members of the classes. Maybe it really has to do with realism. I'll think about it.
B. The representation is only in relation to a certain operation. For example, in your example, the connection operation in the original group is blind to the differences between different members of the same equivalence class (just as the entrance conditions at an amusement park for facilities based on height are blind to hair color). That is, there is no general representation relation here between a member of the class (representative) and the class, but rather a property of a certain operation that is blind to the differences between different members. If we take the quotient group from the equivalence relation modulo 7 and try to apply a power-raising operation, then the representatives will not represent anything. For example, 9(2) and 8(1) if we take 9 to the power of 8 modulo 7 we get 4 which is not equal to 2 to the power of 1 modulo 7.
A. It is clear that there is an explanation. Definitions are not created out of thin air. They are intended to capture a basic intuition that precedes them. The explanation is supposed to convey the intuition to those who do not have it.
B. The entire identity of the members of groups usually depends on an additional structure that the group has. Such as an action or a relation. Otherwise, there are just different members that lack character and color - lacking identity (which is not empty. That is, except for their existence separate from others). If so, it is clear that a different equivalence relation will color these members in a different color.
B. Expand further. For example, I create a quotient group based on a certain ratio (modulo 7 equivalence in your example) and then discover ‘to my surprise’ that it is possible to use representatives in relation to a certain operation (such as the addition operation modulo 7. Or the multiplication operation modulo 7. But not the power operation modulo 7). What else do you see here besides saying that ”the multiplication operation modulo 7 is blind to differences between equivalent terms modulo 7″
Why do you need to say anything more than: "The multiplication operation modulo 7 is blind to differences between equivalent elements modulo 7 ” ?. From the moment the equivalence classes were created (which of course is based on the natural multiplication and addition operations), then their representatives are representations of the entire class and that's it. I don't understand what's complicating you.
Representativeness is only in relation to a particular action, and therefore I do not see it as a statement about the (abstract and vague) relationship between the representative and the class, but rather a (trivial) statement about the properties of the action.
The specific class is also only relative to that particular action. Under that action, the representative is a representative of the class.
What. The equivalence ratio is equality modulo 7. The operation is addition modulo 7. There is a connection, but the equivalence class is ‘not aware’ of the operation at all. I can define an equivalence ratio ‘equality in shoulder width’ and divide the people in the world with it, and then define an operation between two people ‘how many floors are needed to have room to stand them shoulder to shoulder’ and it will be well defined on the classes as well (and therefore it is possible to define an operation between the classes). Although measuring shoulder width and connecting people is a completely different thing.
Okay. Now I finally understand what you want. I wasn't talking about a case like yours. You can always define whatever operations you want on equivalence classes, but then they will function as mere members of some group. I was talking about the standard case where you define some natural operation on equivalence classes, which is a kind of inheritance or continuation of an operation that already exists on the members of the original group. This is the interesting and non-trivial case. This is the productive definition in the context of equivalence classes. In such a case, the representatives of the classes are the representations of the classes to which they belong. By the way, the case you brought is of course not accidental either. The concept of length is what underlies the equivalence relation and the definition of the operation and allows the definition of the operation on equivalence classes.
I'm afraid we haven't reached the bottom yet. You're talking specifically about a bunch of items and not ‘just’ about a group of items (although that's also interesting and useful), but I still don't see the difference. I'm formulating it as if all members of the class have a common attribute and it's the only attribute that a particular action is interested in, so that a particular action simply doesn't know how to distinguish between different members of the class, and that's all. Let's stick to the definitions as if they were my mother's revenge. It's possible that our entire ’debate’ is a matter of terminology, and perhaps this will become clearer when the column on realism arrives.
I still don't know what you're getting into. What Rabbi Michi calls a "representation" in my language is called a "phase": for example, there is a pure substance of water (hydrogen peroxide) and it appears (reveals) to us in one of three phases: solid (ice), liquid (water), gas (steam). The members of an equivalence class are different from each other (because they are different members) but each of them constitutes a "phase" of an equivalence class for any natural operation or relation that you define on the denominator group and that is a natural continuation of the structure that the parent group had (operation or relation)
Correction:
“……. For example, there is a pure substance of water (hydrogen dioxide) and it appears (reveals) to our eyes in one of three states….”
I'm not really getting into it. I'm saying that certain operations are only interested in a certain property that is common to all members of the class. That's all there is and there is no representation of anything.
I don't know if there's any point in giving more examples, but I'll give another example, again from a set of numbers, because I insist that there is no fundamental difference between this and a set of numbers (in which the operation between the classes is inherited from the operation between the members and the output is also one of the classes).
We will define that two numbers are in a ratio if the size of the difference between them is divisible by two pi. Is this an equivalence ratio? Yes. In every class, the sine on each of the members is equal. Now we can define a generalized sine function that accepts an equivalence class and returns a number that is the value of the sine on one of the members in the class. We will call this operating the sine “on the class”. Every member in the class can “represent” It is used to find out what the result of the “generalized sine function” is on the “class”. Does each number in the class represent something? It does not represent anything. All that the members of the class have in common is that the sine (or any function whose range is divisible by two pi) is divisible by two pi. Exactly the same thing happens wherever there is “representation”.
“And you shall keep and do it–for this is your wisdom and your understanding, in the sight of the peoples: who shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”
“And what great nation is there that hath statutes and judgments so righteous, as all this law, which I set before you this day”
“And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments–which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.”
In our day, when we do not study or practice the Torah and despise its wisdom, it is common to conjure up abstract ideas, most of which are unfounded, to justify the matter.
And for the matter itself.
There is no such thing as one thing being a true representation of another thing.
Either it is the thing itself or it is something else.
And if we are talking about simulations, then there are also many assumptions about the laws and omissions and shortcuts.
The way to truly represent something is either to be the thing itself or to know all the laws that govern the thing itself.
I'm running out of ideas here and I need more time. I'll study everything you've brought over the weekend. This subject is heavy for me and I can't exhaust it quickly. I went today and got Kripke's book and it seems that it's time to secretly sit down at his level. Anyone who has the ability to slow down the hands of the clock, please let me know and so on. By the way, in software, they talk about the relationship between inheritance and objectification (Inheritance vs instantiation). Inheritance is abstraction, meaning reducing the number of features and thereby increasing the scope of application, and it deals with the dimension of features and capabilities. Objectification is realization, taking the features as they are and pouring specific values into them. (‘Man’ inherits from ’Mammal’. ‘Bezalel ben Uri ben Hur’ is an object of type ‘Man’).
I accidentally posted the message here instead of in the response above to the references to good quality articles.
In my book What Is, I defined this as the "degeneration" of concepts (like the degeneration of energy levels in physics).
Wonderful. We eagerly await the continuation of this column. And perhaps you can, in the context of these things, explain the Maimonides' approach to the Mishnah according to your perception. That's exactly how I understood him. Thank you!
??
Which Rambam? Are you asking for a general commentary on the Mo'n? 🙂
Could be a great series on Mo”n.
It seems to be there all the way through.
What is the difference between the unity of the educated and the enlightened mind and ”embracing the king through his garments as embracing the king himself”?
Or for example, the third interpretation of ”and the image of the ’ will look” – the real matter grasped by the mind… and its meaning and explanation – the truth of the ’ will attain”. (Chapter 3). There is here an attainment of the sign and of the thing itself and assimilation into it. Beyond understanding what the sign signifies.
That is how it seems to me with my limited mind. Maybe I am wrong.
Indeed, the author of the Tanya relies on the opinion of the Maimonides that with God, His wisdom and will are one.
With blessings, may He be glorified.
The question is too general and not really interesting. If you still want to discuss, bring a specific quote that you are unsure about and present a question for discussion.
Only now do I realize that you made an analogy between a parable and an analogy. In retrospect, a trivial analogy, but I didn't think of it that way until now. Nice, thank you.
Now I also understand what you said that each link in the chain takes one step and so it's easier to recognize that there is indeed an analogy. There is something like an equal side in a chain of analogies, all links have the essential component, but between two non-consecutive links there is too great an external difference. We make a chain A-B-C. A has the essential component and also feature 1. B has the essential component and also feature 1 and also feature 2. C has the essential component and also feature 2. To make an analogy between A and C, we go through B.
Once again :(. I wanted to link this to your response from today at 10:24
It seems to me that if you wait too long before sending a response-to-response then some kind of session is closed and the response becomes an independent response to the column.
Or B has the essential component and 3 appended features. B has the essential component and 2 of the appended features (and more unrelated features). C has the essential component and 1 appended feature (and more unrelated features). D has the essential component (and more unrelated features). So to make it easier to understand the analogy between A and D, we go through the chain.
In this context, it is interesting to think about the work of a builder on Shabbat. According to the Rambam’s method, it is structured as follows:
The father is the construction of a house from bricks or wood – the grouping of parts that form a space (a structure).
Outcome A – a tent – creating a space without grouping parts.
Outcome B: a mop – the grouping of parts that does not create a space.
There are two relevant parameters that make up the whole picture (two basic actions): grouping parts and creating a space. Each of the two outcomes contains one parameter, but they are of course not at all similar to each other. They are the outcomes of a builder because each has a different similarity parameter to the father. If so, there is no chain between the two outcomes (this is the formation of a star, according to your definition above: one center from which different branches emerge).
But it seems to me that the combination of grouping parts + creating a structure with space is not just a combination of two properties. This combination creates a craft that has an overall meaning. Not every combination of two parameters creates a craft. For example, lighting a fire and sorting food waste. These are two parameters that have no connection between them and they do not join to create a complete whole that is composed of both. So, when there is a craft that is attached to two parameters, it means that there is some connection between the two.
(A bit reminiscent of Borges' description in his story Tall, Octobre Tertius, which I cited in the book Two Carts).
In this sense, there should be a connection between the two parameters of a builder's craft. And hence, there is also some connection between the two histories. You can see it better if you reverse the perspective: in each of the two histories there is some aspect of creating a structure, and therefore there is a similarity between them.
Note that I have reversed the direction of thought here, because now the structure is the parameter that creates the events, each of which is a different kind of the type of creating a structure. Previously, we saw the structure as the composition of the two parameters.
Looking at it this way, you can still see a chain here: an analogy is made between a mop and a tentmaker, but you won't see it unless you go through a builder. This is actually a sequence of different levels of construction that appear in each of the crafts, and they create a sequence of construction actions.
Metolginus:
Wonderful. You say that the work of a builder is the equal side (which probably exists) of its two parameters, and therefore the similarity between it and the history is a nuclear equality on the equal side and not a partial similarity in some aspects. Nuclear equality is transitive and therefore also exists between one outcome and another. But partial similarity is not transitive (like if Sarah marries the first Adam and gives birth to Cain, then Isaac and Ishmael are half-brothers, Isaac and Cain are half-brothers, but Cain and Ishmael are not brothers at all. Or the section 10-20 is a bit similar to 5-15 and 15-25, but they are completely different from each other).
But in the end you formulated a ‘continuum of levels of construction’, and this means another idea that I have not yet grasped exactly. But I saw that in the article on Parashat Kedoshim 5665 that you referred me to (File 30) there is something about continuity and continuity that says I will learn and return, I will suffice in his hand.
I think that a builder is not really in the middle of the chain between them, but rather a common factor that can mediate like a father building in relation to its history. And yet, to understand the connection between product A and B, you need to use the father. In this sense, there is a structure here like you were looking for (although, as mentioned, not a metamorphosis).
A word by the way, Orha. It seems that this also has an analogue at the level of linguistic representation. At the level of linguistic representation, rhyme is an analogy. A complete rhyming rhyme is transitive like the equal side, in which each rhymes with all – like סטומה | נאלמה | אדמה | מהמוה | נשם. But in more modern times, an ‘imperfect’ rhyme developed that allows the rhyme to be interwoven in a manner similar to the history of construction – like הפסיד | הפסיד | הציק | הציק. Each successive link is similar enough, but הפסיד | הפסיד is already too far. Such a rhyme consists of three consonant units, a vowel and a consonant (‘סיד’ is ס, חיריק, ק) and if you simulate only a consonant and a vowel and then only a vowel and a consonant, then you create a chain in which there is a gap between the beginning and the end. Of course, if possible, then in order to soften the transition, it is better for the consonants to sound similar as well (ס|צ, ק|ג).
Sotah 17. The blue sky resembles the sea, and the sea resembles the firmament. And Rashi interpreted that the blue sky is not so much like the firmament as it is similar to the firmament, but rather resembles something similar.
If you could please finish this comment and I will copy it to the appropriate place. I thought this time I did respond to a comment.
Does a tree falling in the forest actually fall in the forest?
Since the words “tree” “falling” and ”forest” all denote our visual experiences, which are actually waves/particles of light that hit our eyes and create in our consciousness what we call a ‘sight’ (in our case, a tree falling in the forest), then since when the rest of the tree fell in the forest there were no eyes to see (and no ears to hear), then not only did the tree not make a sound – it did not fall at all! Say from now on “a tree that fell in the forest and no one saw – then it did not fall in the forest at all” and that's it.
What's wrong with Doc? Something happened in the world, and that something is such that if there was a human-type detector there, then in his mind there would be a sound and a sight of a fall.
Seidler,
Tree is a noun. There are trees in the world. Their appearance and their descriptions appear to us in different forms, and this really belongs to the subjective plane. But the fact that a tree fell in the forest is true. The fact that it made a sound – is not true. It caused an acoustic wave.
To Rabbi Mikhi
Saying that ”the word tree plays the role of a noun in language” doesn't mean anything to me. Okay, it's a noun, so what? Just because it's something experienced through the sense of touch/sight makes it less existent in the world than things experienced through the sense of hearing? What if we were like bats, blind but with the ability to
echo-locate so that all the ”objects” that we know and the words that denote them are experienced through the sense of hearing only? The criticism in my message above is not just about the specific example you gave at the end of the article, it is a criticism of the entire way of thinking throughout. The attempt in this column and in column 376 to delve deeply into the philosophy of language and talk about non-verbal representation and thinking, and all this without presenting or dealing with the difficult problems of the relationship between language and the world of experiences, bringing in Wittgenstein, Quine (in his article On What There Is he deals with related issues) or contemporary analytical philosophers like Bas van Fraesen (in his book The Empirical Stance he deals with related issues) seems to me to be very lacking.
It doesn't seem lacking to me at all, but maybe I'm wrong. If you think something is missing or I'm wrong, be respectful and make a claim. The claim you made on the tree is incorrect as I explained. Statements or a list of names are of no use.
Can the Rabbi explain what that abstract Torah is, that is, what does it mean when I say that God and the Torah are one? And why is there value in our consciousness encountering that same abstract thing (the Torah)?
Any such explanation would require the characteristics of the Torah, that is, our language. For us, this Torah is what appears in the five books of the Pentateuch. Therefore, it is abstract.
The value is an encounter with the Almighty (devotion).
It is not called “to represent”. In English Represent. That is, re-presentation.
When you do not know what is represented and you have to decipher it, it is not a re-presentation but a process of encoding and decoding.
According to what you said about the representations of the Torah, you already know what is represented. And if that is so, then in your opinion it is possible to throw the Torah in the trash and come to hear from you what is represented.