tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589564.post7889258429187685352..comments2024-03-05T21:22:43.426-05:00Comments on parshablog: True peshat in Petorahjoshwaxmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03516171362038454070noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589564.post-10186489050681842552011-07-08T17:06:21.797-04:002011-07-08T17:06:21.797-04:00Oh, and thanks for commenting! I'll try to thi...Oh, and thanks for commenting! I'll try to think about this more over Shabbos.<br /><br />kt,<br />joshjoshwaxmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05149022516101476797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589564.post-25927399444373319572011-07-08T17:02:59.757-04:002011-07-08T17:02:59.757-04:00"Also, the Tanchuma uses a loshen of machloke...<i>"Also, the Tanchuma uses a loshen of machlokes--it seems the second two de'os don't hold of the first one even on a pshat level, which is to say that they are saying a "midrashic pshat" rather than drashas. In other words, you can't say they're darshening other levels of the text: I think they're saying something exclusive."</i><br /><br />This is certainly possible, in the general case. As I once overheard a certain prominent parshanut person say, it is not clear to him that Chazal had a sense of PaRDeS, with Peshat as distinct from Derash. I would tend to agree. There is Truth, which might be discovered by an array of means. ('Ain mikra...' means something very different.) Of course, Rishonim already did have such a sense.<br /><br />kol tuv,<br />joshjoshwaxmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05149022516101476797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589564.post-89180861134026605312011-07-08T17:00:03.108-04:002011-07-08T17:00:03.108-04:00thanks. i'll think some more about it.
but my...thanks. i'll think some more about it.<br /><br />but my first inclination is that Rashi never cites Targum Yonasan, which even led some scholars to think it post-dated Rashi. the Zohar, as well, would not be accessible to Rashi, either because Rashbi only dictated it to R' Moshe de Leon later (as Rav Kook has it) or because Rashi was not one of the yechidei segulah. And Tg Yonatan often deviates from the standard midrashic narrative, putting in little twists or combining elements. So it might not lend insight into how Rashi understood the midrash.<br /><br />I am also not sure what על שמיה פתיר חלמיא means. I am reluctant to say that על שמיה means on his (=Bilaam's) name. Rather, I would translate: 'based on the meaning of' + 'interpreting dreams'. Yes, there is the fact that the city is Padan, which is the same as Petor mentioned in the pasuk, and it is named after this attribute of Bilaam, so they *effectively* combine it to make it the name of the city as well. This is not really the same thing as explicitly calling the city after him, because he is an important person.joshwaxmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05149022516101476797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5589564.post-86128005055778354522011-07-08T12:31:18.839-04:002011-07-08T12:31:18.839-04:00The TargumY on the local posuk seems to support th...The TargumY on the local posuk seems to support the Maharal. It says<br />בפדן היא פתור על שמיה פתיר חלמיא והיא מתבניא בארם דעל פרת<br />Also, I don't know if you would consider this much, but see Zohar ח''ג קצב where it says it's the name of a place (and brings a r'aya from the posuk in dvarim), and they called it that name because of the table they set up every day to the sitra achra so that they could do their kshafim. (Don't think I'm such a baki: I got it from Torah Shleima!) Even if you don't think this says anything about Chazal, it's certainly a much earlier source than the Maharal, and it predates a lot of the Maharal's personal takes on aggadeta which influenced later meforshim.<br />Also, the Tanchuma uses a loshen of machlokes--it seems the second two de'os don't hold of the first one even on a pshat level, which is to say that they are saying a "midrashic pshat" rather than drashas. In other words, you can't say they're darshening other levels of the text: I think they're saying something exclusive.<br />All in all, the way I read this, based mostly on the TarY which says "Padan," is that the first opinion in the midrash holds Pesor is the real name of a particular city, while the other two opinions hold it is a kinui for Padan Aram. (Besides the tendency to conserve characters and places in midrash, I imgaine this has to do with identifying Bil'am and Lavan.) They then explain the basis for the kinui. In fact, rather than trying to find a kashya to justify the latter two de'os, I'm trying to find a kashya to justify the first one. Maybe it has to do with identifying Bil'am with Bela (even though the posuk in dvarim mentions aram naharaim, it couldn't have been Padan, but a different city in the same area). Maybe it has to do with a machlokes over Padan that I'm not aware of.<br />Frankly, I'm with the Maharal on this one. That said, I think your problems with the Maharal still apply, because he wasn't saying it based on the TarY, but because of his own (often very problematic) shittos in aggadeta. Also, he never said anyhting about Pesor being Padan specifically, which is key. Anyway, I really like your blog, even though I strongly disagree with you in a lot of your approaches. Keep up t he good work!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com