Q&A: Paradoxes.
Paradoxes.
Question
Hello to our Guide for the Perplexed, may he live long and well.
1. Does Zeno’s paradox belong only to the realm of philosophy and not to the realm of mathematics and physics?
2. Can the paradox be resolved with scientific tools as above?
3. The power of the Sanhedrin and the Sages to govern Jewish law comes from the verse “according to what they instruct you,” but this is also difficult: if these verses themselves are subject to their opinion and interpretation, is it proper that these verses, which grant power to the Sages, should lie outside the bounds of the Oral Torah?
From this I think Yeshayahu Leibowitz was not right in claiming that all the power of the Written Torah comes from the Oral Torah. The Prophets and Writings, yes, but the Five Books of the Torah derive from the foundation of faith, and they are what grant authority to the Oral Torah and to the Sages. Do you agree?
4. Some time ago Anonymous sent the Rabbi a question on this issue, that an individual is allowed to stop someone from committing a prohibition, and it is difficult: how can Jewish law permit such a thing when it itself claims that a person may not take the law into his own hands (in any case, even if one may stop someone from a prohibition, it is forbidden to hit, humiliate, and persecute, as the hooligans who fear Heaven do nowadays)? And in general, how was this ruling ever decided? What is permitted to one person is forbidden to another, since there are many approaches in every area of Jewish law?
Answer
- I didn’t understand the question. What practical difference does it make what field it belongs to? Are property laws involved here? Obviously, if he were right, physics would collapse.
- I solved the Achilles and the tortoise paradox in column 144. As for the arrow, see my article on Zeno’s Arrow: 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%97%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%96%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA1/
- No. Every hierarchical system begins from a point that is its own foundation (just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is His own cause). There is no other way out: either it has an external basis, and then you will ask what the basis of that is, or it is its own basis. Like the question of who will judge the Supreme Court and who will oversee the overseer. There is no escaping this paradoxical starting point. The Knesset and the government determine their own terms of employment and their own spheres of authority, and so too the Sages. Therefore Leibowitz was right, at least partially: they both come together as one.
- This is a broad question, and this is not the place. Search online for material on “a person taking the law into his own hands” (the ruling is that he may, and the question is when and how) and on stopping someone from a prohibition. Obviously this does not apply when the other person is following a different halakhic approach; the question is what the boundaries of objective Jewish law are (beyond disputes).