כי שמחתני ה' בפעליך במעשה ידיך ארנן For You have made me joyful Lord by your works, I will sing about the doings of you hands.
From the standpoint of Maimonides, there is a close connection between learning Physics and Metaphysics with Love and Fear of God.
This has nothing to do with mental capacity, but rather it is simply considered more or less along the same lines as learning Torah.
This you can see is based on Saadia Gaon. Later the Rambam [Maimonides] and the Obligations of the Heart חובות לבבות and the מעלות המידות pick up the same theme.
Clearly later on polemics against all secular learning were reactions to the Enlightenment. However some geonim and many other rishonim were against all forms of secular learning unless it is for the sake of a vocation, e.g. Rav Hai Gaon--the last gaon, and the Rashba and Ramban/Nachmanides.
So the issue is simply a מחלוקת ראשונים an argument among mediaeval authorities. And once you have come to realize that, then there is not a lot more to say. An argument among mediaeval authorities is simply one of those things that are un-decidable. They are (as Motti Freifeld [son of the Rosh Yeshiva of Shar Yashuv] once told me) "אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים" "These and those are the words of the Living God." [That is a quote from the Talmud about an argument between the sages of the Mishna.]
I should mention just as a side note that nowadays I generally go with the approach that Physics ad Metaphysics are important which is along the lines of the Rambam and my parents. However when I was in the Mir in NY and also in Israel I was going with the "Torah alone" approach.
One way to defend the Rambam approach is by the idea of the hidden Torah inside the work of creation. That is a mystical concept from Reb Nachman but it does seem to be the way the Rambam is understanding this.
The way I personally do Physics nowadays is the way of "not trying." That is I just say the words and go on. This is called דרך גירסה and for me it seems to work. This path of learning is brought in the Gemara and the Musar book אורחות צדיקים
[I might mention the requirement of learning Torah along with this which to me means basically Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which is the best thing in terms of "Lumdut." --deep learning. I might be doing more of that myself if I had any books.]
From the standpoint of Maimonides, there is a close connection between learning Physics and Metaphysics with Love and Fear of God.
This has nothing to do with mental capacity, but rather it is simply considered more or less along the same lines as learning Torah.
This you can see is based on Saadia Gaon. Later the Rambam [Maimonides] and the Obligations of the Heart חובות לבבות and the מעלות המידות pick up the same theme.
Clearly later on polemics against all secular learning were reactions to the Enlightenment. However some geonim and many other rishonim were against all forms of secular learning unless it is for the sake of a vocation, e.g. Rav Hai Gaon--the last gaon, and the Rashba and Ramban/Nachmanides.
So the issue is simply a מחלוקת ראשונים an argument among mediaeval authorities. And once you have come to realize that, then there is not a lot more to say. An argument among mediaeval authorities is simply one of those things that are un-decidable. They are (as Motti Freifeld [son of the Rosh Yeshiva of Shar Yashuv] once told me) "אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים" "These and those are the words of the Living God." [That is a quote from the Talmud about an argument between the sages of the Mishna.]
I should mention just as a side note that nowadays I generally go with the approach that Physics ad Metaphysics are important which is along the lines of the Rambam and my parents. However when I was in the Mir in NY and also in Israel I was going with the "Torah alone" approach.
One way to defend the Rambam approach is by the idea of the hidden Torah inside the work of creation. That is a mystical concept from Reb Nachman but it does seem to be the way the Rambam is understanding this.
The way I personally do Physics nowadays is the way of "not trying." That is I just say the words and go on. This is called דרך גירסה and for me it seems to work. This path of learning is brought in the Gemara and the Musar book אורחות צדיקים
[I might mention the requirement of learning Torah along with this which to me means basically Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which is the best thing in terms of "Lumdut." --deep learning. I might be doing more of that myself if I had any books.]
