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The Meiri Method in Relation to Gentiles

שו”תCategory: generalThe Meiri Method in Relation to Gentiles
asked 5 years ago

I saw that the rabbi refers to the Meiri method regarding the status of non-Jews in halakhah as an authentic method. Did the rabbi read Rabbi Hillman’s article on the subject?
https://beta.hebrewbooks.org/reader/reader.aspx?sfid=26453#p=65&fitMode=fitwidth&hlts=&ocr=
I am pretty convinced from this that the Meiri’s differences were intended to answer the questions of the species. (The Meiri there says things that make no sense that there would really be a difference between the worshipers of the AZ and ordinary Gentiles + places where he betrays his true intention and contradicts himself).


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מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
For some reason, I missed the question. forgiveness. I read the article before, and I wasn’t convinced. I provided some evidence that the Meiri’s intentions were serious.

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בית המנוגר replied 5 years ago

Can I have a link to that? And does the Rabbi explain there that on these issues he never brings up the dissenting opinion (in clear contrast to the Meiri's approach in all the rest of his commentary)?

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

I didn't address Hillman's arguments, but this is a fairly weak argument. He doesn't always bring up all the methods, and I'm not sure anyone has said anything explicitly against his method (after all, he was talking about his own environment).
Link to my article:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%9 5%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A0%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A2%D 7%9C-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%97%D7%A1-%D7%9C%D7%92%D7%95%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95

בית המנוגר replied 5 years ago

There are certainly things against his method, Rabbi Hillman even brings an example where a friend of the Meiri's in Provence wrote something that the Meiri writes and said it explicitly as a response of the species and nothing more. In general, he almost always brings the divisive method, especially when it comes to the Rambam ” and indeed the Rabbi tried to insert his approach into the Rambam, but in my opinion this is a failed attempt, because the Rambam clearly expresses himself about the Christians of his time who were worshippers of the Holy Spirit in every way and in this, among other things, the Meiri does not bring the Rambam as divisive.
In general, in the article there is a very unfounded comparison in my opinion between those who walk in the desert with summer clothes and their children and the Meiri's approach to midrashic continuity. The name of the doubt itself is puzzling, and although there is no clear source, the fathers are held to have walked in short clothes when it is hot, as is the way of other people, and we have no reason to suspect that they had hidden reasons for doing so. On the other hand, we have no presumption that the Torah commands commandments that sound moral and logical to us in everything related to the building of a place (Ezekiel 7), for the Torah we know that there are frequently hidden reasons (if at all) and that a “written decree” is not a broken vision. Therefore, the comparison is difficult in my opinion.
In addition, the Meiri method is also difficult in itself. After all, a Jew who worshipped idols even once in the presence of witnesses + warning is liable to death, even if he only bowed down and is still perfectly fine from a personal point of view (and perhaps even later returned with complete repentance). There are certainly examples of the sin of Ezekiel 7 that is called that even if the perpetrators are completely fine, even if he is completely fine (as in the sin of the calf). And is the fence different for a Gentile? Or is there no offense in worshipping idols today? I don't think this is an argument that passes the test of examples.
Incidentally, I also find it hard to believe that the sages did not know enlightened worshippers of idols. Several sages had gentile friends (Ablet, a friend of Shmuel, Antoninus, a friend of Rabbi, and more).

רציונלי (יחסית) replied 5 years ago

Is Rabbi Michail of Zummiter talking about his own environment? After all, in all the discussions of the Rishonim and Aharonim regarding the Gentiles, whether they make a division between Gentiles who work in the land of Zechariah and whether they don't, they talk about the Gentiles as a whole, and not about specific Gentiles from a region of Mesium. (That is, they don't make a division between Gentiles who live in the regions of Mesium and Gentiles who live in another region). And the Meiri of Kammoni doesn't make such a division either.

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

Rational,
Not true. If you read the words of the Meiri, you will see that he distinguishes between Gentiles who are bound by the manners of nations and other Gentiles.

Home,
Do you really want to claim that the Meiri is supposed to bring every method of someone who lives in Provence? I am supposed to respond to such a strange claim? We are having a debate about facts. The Meiri does not always bring conflicting opinions. Especially if he does not see them as a dispute about his method. As I argued there, the Maimonides does not disagree with him. On the contrary, the Maimonides can be cited as a source for his words. The Maimonides believed that they were worshippers of idols, I explained in my article that the Meiri did not disagree with. Are you sure you read the article?
I have nothing to answer your claims about the parable of the swimsuits. It is exactly the same thing. Again, I am not talking about the question of whether these Gentiles are worshippers of idols.
And as for what Chazal recognized, the exceptions are not of interest to us. We are talking about the supposition of the reasonable Gentile.

And finally, the discussion about the Meiri is not important, since I would have said this from my explanation even without the Meiri. The explanation is correct, whether the Meiri said it or not.

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