Blessed and most revered be the tzur ("rock"), foundation of all existence, whose “insight” (T'vunaso) , “wisdom” (chochmaso) and “knowledge” (Da’ato) bring into being, a system of existing things, whose existence exhibits a wisdom and grace which none but He can completely apprehend.
Praised be the creator, who, because of the desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of mankind.
This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained, but rather extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone lowly material reality is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.
Biur D'varim:
In his hakdamah li-peyrush ha-torah Ralbag distinguishes two senses of our understanding of God:
1) God as the source of order or lawfulness in the universe:
The tzur ("rock"), foundation of all existence, whose “insight” (T'vunaso) , “wisdom” (chochmaso) and “knowledge” (Da’ato) bring into being, a system of existing things whose existence exhibits a wisdom and grace which none but He can completely apprehend.
The creator, who, because of the desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of mankind.While we have heard these ideas of Tzur and Creator, they feel like abstractions, disconnected from anything real to us in the world. What problem in the world as we experience it does this distinction between Tzur and Creator resolve?
To appreciate the problem the Ralbag's hakdama resolves, we must first explore the perplexity of the general scientific community regarding the phenomena of Chochma in our universe. This perplexity is well portrayed in the writings of Einstein regarding the tension between the method of seeking principles in the world of science and the method of seeking values in the world of religion.
While it is true that science, to the extent of its grasp of causative connections, may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incompatibility of goals and evaluations, the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science's reach... Religion is concerned with man's attitude toward nature at large, with the establishing of ideals for the individual and communal life, and with mutual human relationship. These ideals religion attempts to attain by exerting an educational influence on tradition and through the development and promulgation of certain easily accessible thoughts and narratives (epics and myths) which are apt to influence evaluation and action along the lines of the accepted ideals.Science focuses exclusively on Chochmas hashem as expressed in the overall universe. Newton yearns to know the cause of phenomena as they are a part of the Universe as a whole. When we say that gravity makes the apple fall from the tree, we conceive of an apple as merely another example of body that is subject to the cause of all physical motion throughout the universe. As much as Newton may marvel at the unity of order in the universe that allows the lowly apple as well as planets and whole galaxies to be moved by the same abstract principle- this awareness does not directly inform his action. To act, Newton needs values, a sense of what is good, by which to choose which of the motions of gravity he should seek. Should he seek to throw his apple as a missile? Should he seek to put his apple in a spaceship orbiting the moon? The mere awareness of the general law of gravity gives Newton no answer to these questions of value by which man settles his world.
Einstein goes further and notes that issues of value are in reality a purely human affair. They are external to appreciating the grandeur of His infinite unified wisdom and are relegated to the practical question of how we simple mortals should act during our small lifetimes. In that sense the educational myths that teach values are instruments like a plow or a shovel. As instruments, Einstein thought values must of necessity be a purely human creation. To be sure there could be better myths and worse myths, however in the end it is necessarily man, not God, who would create these myths, in the same way as man invents all instruments.
It is in this tendency of scientists to mistakenly focus exclusively on Chochmaso, to the exclusion of tuvo that is the source of their relegating human education to the realm of a practical instrument. It is this very mistake that Ralbag confronts in his hakdamah. To be sure the Torah recognizes the "chochma" of the tzur, the ultimately abstract unified understanding of all motion in the universe as a whole that Einstein speaks of. However Chochma in the universal sense is not the only expression of Him. There is another phenomenon as well- the grace of the Creator's actions expressed in respect to the excellence of development of the specific subsystems of Aretz that enable man to apprehend the Wisdom of the Creator. This distinction between Chochmaso and tuvo is also made in the Rambam:
When a person gains insight into these d’varim (first principles), recognizing (the entire hierarchy) of the creations, from angel and galaxy all the way to man (and his environment) , and therefore sees the chochmas hashem in all the creations, he adds to his love of the makom, and his soul thirsts and his flesh yearns to love the makom baruch hu. Simultaneously, this person feels a great awe and fear resulting from his smallness and inconsequentiality ...It is precisely the remoteness of this wisdom of the Tzur, the difficulty of grasping its generality in the entire hierarchy of the creations that points to the need for His grace. To paraphrase Einstein, the most amazing thing about the Universe is precisely that it is apprehensible to Man. The Ancients viewed this tendency of the wisdom of the Creator to be adapted to the limited capacity of the human mind as a phenomenon of the Universe itself. This grace is similar to a mighty "guiding hand", the hashgacha by which we "cultivate our minds (yishuv daat) and develop this world (yishuv aretz) and attain the world to come". The emergence of davar katan thought in man is not another practical concern like the invention of the plow- it is part of the mechanisms of the Aretz itself no less than our anatomy and physical powers.
Now I say that it is inappropriate to tour the pardes except for he who has filled his belly with bread and meat . “Bread and meat” refers to knowing the assur and mutar (ie the applied principles) in that which is not first principles. Even though these principles are called davar katan... they come first educationally, since they cultivate (meyashvin) the mind and additionally are the great good by which we develop this world (yishuv Aretz) and attain the world to come.
Praised be the creator, who, because of the desire to benefit the creations and facilitate their maturation, directed His hashgacha upon these lowly beings, developing them through the appropriate stages climaxing with the emergence of mankind.It is precisely this phenomenon of facilitating the intellectual awakening in the seeking man that Ralbag and Rambam are pinpointing as the framework of Torah. As Tehillim points out:
This hashgacha is not limited to the magnificence of man’s anatomy and physical abilities by which his physical existence is maintained, but rather extends to guiding man along the path of mental development- the one true fruit of human existence for whose sake alone lowly material reality is endowed with tzura to the extent that it is. We refer of course to the divine Torah, which is a regimen that orders those who practice it properly to true success.
The Lord, from heaven, looked down upon the children of man, to see if there were any man of understanding searching for God (14:2).It is for this reason that the Psalmist extols the Torah as the aid to education and realization of the regular man.
The Torah of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul, the testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making wise the simple person.In summary the subject of the Chumash is the fully realized or the excellent man. The hakdama of the peyrush ha-Ralbag sets up the first principles needed for there to be such a thing as the excellent man. To do so Ralbag releases us from the misguided notion of scientists such as Einstein that the only expression of God is the d'varim gedolim -Chochmas hashem seen in the overall universe. Instead he focuses our attention on d'varim k'tanim, the relationship to Hashgacha that facilitates the illumination of the simple man who seeks Tuv hashem in the order of the subsystem of Aretz as a settlement of Man.
The first principle of torah then is not something about the inyanim of the subject of the excellent man. Rather, the first principle is about something prior to the subject of "excellent man" from which the potential for inyanim of this subject could arise- a tuv hashem that is distinct in our thought from chochmaso.
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