Q&A: From Then Until Today, the Skinny and the Fat One (What Changed in You, Michael?)
From Then Until Today, the Skinny and the Fat One (What Changed in You, Michael?)
Question
I’ve gone through quite a lot of your videos (lectures, interviews). A few years ago you spoke nicely, but not in a sufficiently organized way, you didn’t present things systematically, and you were really lacking that excessive self-confidence—a cute chubby guy who talks but always leaves room for uncertainty even in what he says.
But in recent years, since you opened this blog here, you really pretend to be like Maimonides, and even much sharper than him, because of modern science and digging around in the books of dozens of other philosophers.
So explain to me honestly—what really caused that change in you? The people who applauded you, or the crystallization of your views, which you kept strengthening and grounding day by day.
Answer
You’d better ask the scholars of my teachings and personality (the mighty one).
By the way, I don’t know you or your personal history, but from what you wrote here it’s clear that you’re a bit lacking in the area of phrasing. The sentences aren’t clear, the contrasts aren’t really contrasts, and so on. But I won’t ask how you explain that (if only for fear that I won’t understand that either).
Discussion on Answer
Michi usually chews up Maimonides with a healthy appetite.
As someone who has been following the site for a very long time, I’ve noticed a change in the style of the answers.
Whereas in the past the Rabbi would answer every question at length, and would go back and forth and respond to every comment, today the discussion is already different.
I don’t mean new topics that come up, but classic topics. Sometimes new visitors come to the site (by the way, the number of visitors has really skyrocketed in the last year!!!), and they ask about “classic” topics, like individual providence, and the Rabbi apparently doesn’t have the time or patience to get drawn once again into exhausting discussions, and so (after a short ping-pong exchange) he often answers that “these topics have been discussed here ad nauseam.”
So it’s true that Rabbi Michi is busy with his many matters (and with the trilogy that’s taking its time…), and of course you can’t really complain.
On the other hand, a new visitor to the site isn’t going to go search for and read old, long threads on these topics, and I assume that when there’s no one to discuss his uncertainties with, he feels disappointed.
And perhaps that is the question the spies were asked to investigate in the Land of Israel: whether the theology practiced in the land is “fat” or “skinny.” They thought the land was “skinny,” since God does not intervene in what happens in the land and its blessing is natural, but the Torah testifies that this is “a land that the Lord your God seeks out always; the eyes of the Lord your God are upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year” — the land is very, very “fat”!
With blessing, S. M-n
To Lesatzal:
It seems to me that this comment belongs to the post published today, not to the current question.
By the way, the Rabbi invited you to address the question “Torah-level Torah study regarding rabbinic laws” that came up a week ago. Did you notice? What do you think?
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Aharon,
What question exactly did “Maimonides” ask that he didn’t get an answer to? (Aside from the issue that I don’t know what’s more insulting, the “cute” or the “chubby”…)
I was surprised that our Rabbi Michi responded to the question at all, and if he was going to respond, then good that he answered this way.
With God’s help, 24 Sivan 5779
To Aharon — greetings,
My comment “Is the Fat One a Skinny Nation?” contains a touch of humor. I acted like that wagon driver who was asked, “Where is your horse?” and answered: “I heard from the Hasidim that it is fitting to connect everything to the weekly Torah portion, so I tied the horse to the weekly Torah portion…”.
Since the discussion here, and the exchange of jabs between “Maimonides” and “Ramda,” also contains a touch of humor, I found it appropriate to place next to it this comment of mine, in which my lips drip with humor..
Still, there is also a genuine basis for linking the discussion about Ramda’s chubbiness and cuteness to the question of the land’s fatness or skinniness, for it is “a good and spacious desirable land.” A “desirable land” is “cute,” and “spacious” means “chubby.” And Saul Tchernichovsky already taught us that “a person is the pattern of the landscape of his homeland” 🙂
In Column 222 the matter is far too painful to joke about, and therefore I was careful there not to drift into that…
With blessing, Shatz
As for the discussion whether there is a Torah-level commandment of Torah study regarding rabbinic laws — I saw that the question was asked, but I haven’t had the chance to look into the subject.
To Lesatzal, the precious S. M-n,
But surely there is an explicit verse in Zephaniah chapter 2:
“Terrible is the Lord against them, for He will make lean all the gods of the earth; and all the coastlands of the nations shall bow down to Him, every one from his place.”
Ramda does not merely make lean the gods of the earth so that all the nations of the earth will bow to Him (the Holy One, blessed be He).
By the way, with Ramda you can see that worldly conduct precedes Torah: first he slimmed down in the worldly sense, and afterward he slimmed down the Torah.
And about this it may be said: Blessed is the Wise One of the lean ones (= dietitian)
With blessing, Rezon D’Atra (son of Elida)
It seems that nowadays you can discuss just about anything.
Actually, I don’t agree with Aharon. I was just telling my wife that what I really love about Rabbi Michi is that he always answers to the point when people ask to the point.
And with all due respect to the newcomers, let them do a search; it doesn’t seem reasonable to me that he should write everything again. If they have objections to what he said, then let them copy and paste and ask, and he will certainly respond.
Hahaha, knockout! Michi ate Maimonides alive…