I just got done writing about the Talmud on my other blog so I don't know how well i am going to be able to focus my attention here.
Here i wanted to discuss the Rambam.
We all would like the rambam to be saying in his eight chapters that the Torah is the middle path and also that it brings to the middle path. Right? But on the surface that does not seems to be what he is saying. My thesis is that in fact that is what the rambam is saying.
Ok not to the meant and potatoes of the subject. Thus saith the Rambam: people have physical aliments and mental sicknesses. Medicine teaches us how to deal with physical sickness. And the same principle applies to mental sickness. You go to the opposite extreme for a while until the bad nature or diseases is uprooted an then you return to the middle.
Now at this point it looks like the rambam is saying two different things. It seems he means that the Torah is itself the middle path, But also that it brings to the middle path. but how can he say that is the way to get to the middle is to go to the opposite extremer which he just got done saying is pure evil?
The Torah is i hope not telling us to go to some evil extremer in order to straighten out our personal problems!
I suggest that the Rambam here can be meaning that the Torah provides ways for individual to cure themselves but that its general approach is in fact the Middle. Nazir is perfect example that the rambam himself brings and [nedarim] oaths also. is an example . also a time to do for God is brought by the rambam as a general Principe that the Beit Din can use to correct faults of the generation that is :it is not just for a prophet.
Here i wanted to discuss the Rambam.
We all would like the rambam to be saying in his eight chapters that the Torah is the middle path and also that it brings to the middle path. Right? But on the surface that does not seems to be what he is saying. My thesis is that in fact that is what the rambam is saying.
Ok not to the meant and potatoes of the subject. Thus saith the Rambam: people have physical aliments and mental sicknesses. Medicine teaches us how to deal with physical sickness. And the same principle applies to mental sickness. You go to the opposite extreme for a while until the bad nature or diseases is uprooted an then you return to the middle.
Now at this point it looks like the rambam is saying two different things. It seems he means that the Torah is itself the middle path, But also that it brings to the middle path. but how can he say that is the way to get to the middle is to go to the opposite extremer which he just got done saying is pure evil?
The Torah is i hope not telling us to go to some evil extremer in order to straighten out our personal problems!
I suggest that the Rambam here can be meaning that the Torah provides ways for individual to cure themselves but that its general approach is in fact the Middle. Nazir is perfect example that the rambam himself brings and [nedarim] oaths also. is an example . also a time to do for God is brought by the rambam as a general Principe that the Beit Din can use to correct faults of the generation that is :it is not just for a prophet.
