Question

In the last section of column 618, you cited the Minchat Chinukh, who understood that the Mishneh LaMelekh says that "do not place a stumbling block" includes only causing someone to sin (and giving bad advice), and does not include physically causing someone to stumble. And the Minchat Chinukh is astonished: how can the verse be taken completely away from its plain meaning? If "do not place a stumbling block" does not include physical tripping, then the Jewish law derived from the plain meaning of the verse is effectively uprooted.
 
I’d like to use this opportunity to learn something tangential about interpretation—when the goal is to understand the author’s intent. In the past I argued to you that the Mishneh LaMelekh never meant to say that "do not place a stumbling block" excludes physical tripping, and that the Minchat Chinukh simply did not understand him correctly. And you—after saying that you discussed the approach itself even if that was not actually the Mishneh LaMelekh’s intention—brought the full wording of the Mishneh LaMelekh, whose straightforward sense is indeed like the Minchat Chinukh: that the Mishneh LaMelekh takes the verse entirely away from its plain meaning and uproots the law in its plain sense. Whereas I relied on additional interpretive considerations to read the Mishneh LaMelekh against the most obvious meaning of his wording, but without uprooting the plain sense.
I’m not asking there in that column, because this is tangential to that piece; and also because regarding the interpretive issue itself you already answered me in the past (though it has remained in my mind ever since like a loose end that was never properly sewn up, and it keeps bothering me). So now, with your permission, I’d like to briefly present the issue in the Mishneh LaMelekh and ask your opinion, interpretively speaking, about his words.
 
The issue in the Mishneh LaMelekh (Laws of Lending, chapter 4, law 6, beginning with “The author of Knesset HaGedolah wrote”) is this: https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14279&st=&pgnum=75&hilite=. The Maharit says that someone who violates “Cursed is one who strikes his father” is disqualified from testimony (under the law of one who violates a ban), but elsewhere he says that one who violates "do not place a stumbling block" is not disqualified from testimony. The Mishneh LaMelekh asks: but there is also “Cursed is one who misleads the blind.” And he answers according to the Maharit:
“It is possible to say that he holds that the verse ‘one who misleads the blind’ is speaking according to its plain meaning, and not about misleading one’s fellow into sin. But the verse ‘before the blind you shall not place a stumbling block’ is different, either because of the juxtaposition to ‘the deaf,’ or because it says ‘and you shall fear your God,’ as the commentators have written; for that reason we do not expound it according to its plain meaning, but rather as referring to misleading one’s fellow into sin.”
That is: physical tripping would indeed disqualify a person from testimony under the law of “one who misleads the blind,” but causing someone to sin—which belongs only to "do not place a stumbling block"—would not disqualify him from testimony.
 
The Minchat Chinukh interprets the Mishneh LaMelekh’s wording—and as mentioned, in the past you agreed with that reading—to mean that we do not expound "before the blind" according to its plain meaning [at all], but [only] as referring to misleading one’s fellow into sin (and giving bad advice). I suggested instead that we do not expound it [only] according to its plain meaning, as with “one who misleads the blind,” but [also] as referring to misleading one’s fellow into sin; and physical tripping always remains included in "do not place a stumbling block" as well.
 
Clearly, the simpler reading of the Mishneh LaMelekh’s wording is like the Minchat Chinukh. But there are two considerations against reading the Mishneh LaMelekh in that most straightforward way.
1. For the purpose of his answer, the Mishneh LaMelekh has no reason and no benefit in saying that "do not place a stumbling block" does not include physical tripping. He only needs to say that there is something in "do not place a stumbling block"—namely, causing someone to sin—that is not included in “one who misleads the blind.” So why would the Mishneh LaMelekh slip in such an obiter dictum?
2. This very idea—that "do not place a stumbling block" has been taken entirely away from its plain meaning—is obviously an idea that needs explanation, just as the Minchat Chinukh was astonished by it. And the Mishneh LaMelekh himself admits that the plain sense refers to physical tripping, and only because of a kind of derashah—“the juxtaposition to the deaf”—do we interpret it as referring to causing someone to sin. So it is hard to believe that the Mishneh LaMelekh would innovate that we do not expound it according to its plain meaning at all, and yet make no effort whatsoever to address this problem of uprooting the plain sense.
 
My question is: what is your interpretive view of the Mishneh LaMelekh’s wording?