Jewish Astrology (Pt II) | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz | February 10th 2026

Uh the construction patterns seem to change literally from uh day to day. So I have to recalibrate. Uh anyway, our dedication today is as usual layma forina the shak is and our now standard dedication for the tikun of all of the nishamos from marishon uh till the present till the present day. Um last week we were looking at a very important letter of the Rambam. Uh this is this you might call a quai public letter. Quai public because it was directed to a whole kahila and that was uh the kakamim of provenance. Provence is southern France and southern France. The Rambam had many groupies uh in Provence although he also had many antagonists. The rivet from Ram vended the Rambam's great critic is from Provence as well. Of course, one would say the fact that the Rivid spent so much time analyzing the Rambam shows that there was a great deal of admiration uh even there and they inquired uh from the Rambam about astrology which is called which again there are sources in Kazal that seem to endorse it. the Ebenezra whose writings were known in Provence, you know, surprisingly wrote probably 10 books about astrology. Uh they're not learned that much today, but you can get them in Hebrewbooks.org that that website. Uh and they wanted to know the Rambam's view about astrology. And without reviewing the whole thing, you'll recall that the Rambam basically considered it to be a junk science. Uh it's meaningless. Uh it has no verification. And even if there are isolated mamari kazal that endorse it either these were simply individual views that were not authoritative or they have to be understood in metaphor. Sometimes there are michelm sometimes the kakam want to communicate spiritual ideas using the medium of superstition that the hamonam believes in. In other words, it's kind of the lavush. It is the garment for a spiritual truth. Now in a related matter, this is not this mentioned in the letter at all. There's a similar type of issue about the idea of demons. Demons, shadmikim. Uh anyone that learns uh garra will see that the garra has many many many references to shadim. Shaim meaning demons and midrashim even give the origin of it. It it actually says that for 13 after the death of Cayenne and He uh so I'm sorry after the death of He after Cayenne murdered He so Adam separated from his wife for 130 years that's why Chase was born when Adam was 130 years old and according to the cababalistic midrashim during those 130 years there was occasional emission of Zeratala because he was por from his wife and from that zerat were created the demonic children shim. Uh in fact this is the source of the min even today that sometimes uh people from outside of the usual community get a little unnerved. I mean you know that the official min of yushaim is that children do not escort the aron of their parents to the actual burial ground. Children don't go. Now again people from routinely just don't keep this. They don't they just just don't do that one. So you may not even see them in that often. But occasionally even today the kadisha will announce that the banim or the bonote should not be malave to the kev. They can come afterwards but they should not be malave. They are into the kev. The basis of that cababalistic min. It's absolutely not a it is certainly not a but the basis for that cababalistic minog is that a person can have different types of children. You can have your children And you can have the demonic children that are created from zera. And the idea is that once some kids go to the go to the ke the other kids can follow along and that theoretically could be uh a a dangerous thing. Uh yeah any [clears throat] age >> uh any age even adult even adults. Now as I said I don't want to discourage anybody. This is not not a at all but it in fact is a is an old of course keeps on spreading to beesh and and beyond meaning in fact that was there that was a whole fight in Beamesh when they wanted to make not they a group wanted to make in bamesh 40 minutes before because as you know that that is the min of yushim and there were quite a few religious people who were against that he says we're not yushlay Why are we m to have that particular custom? I don't want to get into the politics but generally speaking spreads and of course the other way around Ben spreads. Let me mention that let me mention this. The min of shallayim and shabis was to use electricity from the grid even though some of the power workers are Jews. The minab based on the kazonish was not to use electricity from the grid. thereby either being in the dark or having your own generator and the the to be mel is a very well since there since the invention of electricity more or less uh we have been mel and yet you will find more and more are adopting benet so it's interesting idea that ban bra spreads to shallayam yushallayam spreads to ban bra things get uh bigger and bigger but this is all a digression I'm just mentioning this to to highlight the idea that shadim demons do play a role in uh in the Talmud and they even have an impact on Jewish men hugim such as the children not going to the levia to the to the burial site of their parents Bashas misa now the Rambam writes in the morinim consistent with kind of the approach that he has with astrology although it's two different issues that no such thing as demons what are demons demons or superstitions. Uh this was taken from Babylonian idolatry. Uh and of course there's no such thing as demons. Khazal were talking about metaphors oral were sometimes using this is a bit daring by the way. They sometimes use superstitions that they know are false to communicate certain valid ideas. I mean that itself is actually a bit of a bit of a kdish kind of using false ideas to convey true ideas. is but the Rambam actually says such a thing. Uh so the Rambam says just like astrology is a junk science uh demons is a fake thing. No such thing. Now interestingly enough the Vil Nagon who lived hundreds of years after the Rambam the Vagon lived in the 18th century writes in his commentary on the Shanak that the Rambam was led astray by his preoccupation with a cursed philosophy. philosophy arura he says which posits that only the rational is real and therefore the Rambam could not accept anything that does not have a rational scientific basis and kaval the vnagon says that the great Rambam was led astray by his preoccupation with Greek philosophy now again the vil nagon was a great admirer of the rambom the vil nagon did not say oh rambom's anicior let's forget about him which is an interesting point because today for sure that is what would happen uh but the grass said the Ramba made a mistake in this area but I'll listen to them in other areas so the vil nagon says for sure there are shadim for sure cuz I'll say there are there are so somebody asked the kuskarbi the great enigmatic kidic rebi of the 19th century who do we follow do we follow the rambom do we follow the gra so the kuskarbi said the gra is absolutely correct that there are shadim but once the rambom says they don't exist even the shadim have to respect the ram so so they disappear that's why we don't necessarily uh confront them but again these are two different questions astrology and demons but I I think there is a point of connection because both of them are based on a certain idea of rationality and logic and science science. Now, what's interesting is that I do want to point out that in spite of the fact that the Rambam disparages astrology, the Rambam absolutely believed as Aristotle believed and as philosophers believed that planets and stars have consciousness. They are intelligent beings. Now, in other words, what's interesting is we're not associating that with a belief in astrology in terms of their influencing the future. But lama the ramshittita if you look in the hilotra is that planets and stars do have intelligence. They are they're bal meaning they're kind of angelic figures. Our assumption is they don't have free will. Uh but they function uh in terms of consciousness praising praising God. So that's interesting even though from the 21st century perspective we would look at that as a highly irrational thought but again that was the science of the time that actually was the scientific uh belief. In fact the Rambam points out that um astrology was not it was really it was a Babylonian and Egyptian superstition. the Greeks and the Romans that the Rambam holds at a pedestal for a culture did not believe in astrology uh and therefore there's no reason that we should we should believe believe in it. Now I had mentioned without repeating everything uh last week that uh it's very very difficult to reconcile the Rambam statement with with all of the statements in the Talmud and the Rambam would answer in part he doesn't have to reconcile he says we don't accept certain statements but you'll recall again just to remind you of a very very important passage uh in Mess Shabas that says he who is born under the influence of Mars Mars. Mars is the red planet. Maadim will have a lust for blood. And that lust for blood can be sublimated into a a moel, a surgeon, a blood letter, which is productive, or a murderer and a thief. Now obviously the Gammorrah is saying that a person's personality is influenced by their planet. Now the Rambam would say that's not true. But I think this is the very last point and it it does bear repeating. Even if you don't accept that passage in the literal sense of planetary influences, it is still making an enormously important point. The the the point of that passage goes beyond the astrology aspect. Yeah, that passage is presupposing astrology. Bader Rambam says no such thing. But it is making a point in terms of how do you balance or reconcile the part of the human psyche or personality that is hardwired versus the capacity for free will. Now yeah the hardwired aspect in the time of Khaz was thought to be astrology. The Rambam rejects that. But we have other aspects of hard wiring. My DNA, right? Everyone knows, everyone either remembers as a child or has a child that from birth children are born with different types of personalities. Some babies are very very calm. Some babies are highrung. This is something they don't have control over. They're born a certain way. So and and and and scientifically now that we have mapped and sequenced the human genome we have a much greater understanding of the genetic structure of a human being and uh it's understood that genes to some degree are not only about physical things but they can refer to emotional uh a effect and and and the like. So in point of fact, I can tell you that a lot of lawyers, criminal lawyers, criminal defense lawyers are examining the human genome structure very carefully to figure out what criminal defenses they can give for their axe murder clients. Oh, my client had the axe murderer gene. Couldn't help it. And indeed, philosophers have pointed out that the human genome project does create some philosophical problems regarding free will, accountability, and autonomy. Are we truly free if we're programmed in a certain way? As you know, this has even entered the area of homosexuality, of same-sex attraction, where some say, again, I'm not taking a side on this, that there there are biological predispositions to same-sex attraction. So, philosophically, the problem is how do you reconcile this with the idea of free will, which is foundational to the Torah? And the truth of the matter is this Gomorrah which a person might dismiss as oh that's astrology I don't pay attention to it but if you put aside the astrology which I would suggest is actually a side point there's a very profound insight and that is on one hand you can't change who you are but you can direct and channel who you are into positive and good directions and that's exactly did biology is not destiny. Biology is not deterministic in that way. Biology may create the parameters of who you are. So you're working within a framework just like a tomato cannot become an orange. So a certain type of personality will not be another type of personality. Even though even there I think there is a certain plasticity but the point is a person can still make a choice how they use to direct their personality right so the person that has um something like ADHD or whatever it will be or can't really sit for 6 hours he could be the person who organizes malava malcas and and takes care of a lot of administrative detail etc meaning there's good and bad ways that you can direct the nature of your personality and this is really the alpo educate a young person according to their derk. [snorts] The idea is you don't try to change a person. you take that person and have them capitalize on their malots and use them in a positive way. Um, some say kind of as a joke that unfortunately too many Okay, this is an in joke. You have to be familiar with Yiddish pronunciations. Uh, too many lit fox read the Pak like a dark [laughter] the way aid might pronounce the then in inra it means train a child according to my way and uh can pronounce it that way because they still mean dark but if you're not aid you got to you got to say darko uh and not dark. Yeah. Um so Rabbesla talks about the latter of bakira. Yeah. So the axe murder is not the in the same place. I mean the potential axe murder not the same place as the son. >> That's correct. That that's correct. So so nuda is is very very relevant to this idea that there's always going to be a choice. The axe murderer may not be uh the person who promotes peace in the world but he can at least control himself not to kill. And you know, uh, the criminal defense world does have defense. I mean, I mean, it's not unheard of. People have gotten off, uh, crimes sometimes because of the, um, sugar [clears throat] defense. They have re reactions when they have too much sugar. Uh, women have gotten off premenstrual syndrome, PMS defense. Uh, Twinkies defense, you know. So, there are different types of defenses. Um, another example, you know, they used to make a joke. It's an old old joke. I think it's a Jewish joke. Definition of is the person who kills his parents and then asks for mercy because they're an orphan. Well, that's exactly what the Menendez brothers did when they were tried. They didn't they weren't successful, but they basically said we're all alone in the world. You know, who's going to take care of us? You know, you have to have I we killed our parents. Okay. Sad. So, [clears throat] uh, the absurd often gets realized in real life. It's a funny thing. Uh, life imitates art. Uh, and things that seem to be so crazy that you can't imagine they would ever be said actually turn out to be things that happen. Here's another example. Forgive me for for digressing. which is really neim is a very very gentle and respectful you wouldn't even know it unless you knew the history pmic against certain trends in earlyus and the problem that the nephe was grappling with was that early very correctly emphasized that for many people Torah and mitzvah became too superficial. It was just a matter of doing an act and it was not accompanied with passion and with love and with reverence. So one of the things that emphasized was the emphasis on deos on connecting yourself to God and not just going through the motions. Now that itself is perfectly wonderful. But what that introduced and some in some segments of [clears throat] was that hakic detail became less important. Because what's the difference? If you reach schma by 9:00 or 10:00, isn't the most important thing? What does Hashem want more? Let's imagine keshma is over at 9:00 a.m. But you're very tired. You were up last night, you know, till till 3:00 in the morning. So tell me, what does Hashem want? Does he want a superficial schma where you're falling asleep that you happen to do by 8:55 or does he want a gashmak passionate keshma at 12:00 in the noon? Come on. Certainly God wants the 12:00 shma more than the 9:00 shma to use the fancy word. This was an anti-nomian tendency in early. So the nepheim wrote the book to kind of emphas and by the way the Tanya emphasized the same thing as the nephe they they overlap there. That's why the Tanya was very controversial not only among nonassim among there were many that criticized the but the balata and the emphasized the masa you only can serve God by doing his will. Yes, kavana is very very important but it has to be connected to doing the mim correctly fidelity. So Rafner gives an example of the absurdity of kidic thinking. Actually he doesn't mention he doesn't mention I I have to emphasize he does not mention the Balto's movement even once. He's very very differential uh very respectful unlike his own revi the vil nagon who issued all sorts of and the like had a totally different approach than the villagon uh very gentle and the like but he gives an example of an absurdity let's imagine you've been preparing for pes and you've been up late preparing for pes cleaning the house skying cooking all the different things and finally it comes sed or night and you are dead tired. Dead tired. You cannot keep your eyes open and if there's going to be four cups of wine, you know you're going to collapse after the first cup. So you have the following. I tell you what, let's go to bed early tonight and tomorrow morning we're going to make the best seder hashem has ever seen since mit. And indeed they get up the next morning and they make a gala gassed. But what is that worth right? They're not fulfilling the matzah the mor they're not doing the so yeah you get a high you get excited but if it's not connected to the way hashem says to do a mitzvah what have you accomplished this was the reductto adapertum of so I remember I was once giving this example to a group of of non-religious Jews that were not yet from just as an example of why we have haka So a woman raised her hand and she said, "Yeah, we did exactly that. You know, we couldn't get the family together." Now, this is not just the next day. We couldn't get them together for Pesak. So, we decided we would just make the seder one week later. And I tell you, it was the best seder we ever had. So you know what and consider to be like the height of an absurdity is actually is actually done. So uh this is what you have here sometimes. Okay. Uh but be it as it may uh this is the Rambam's position uh on astrology and it's also historically important because this was the first major letter he communicated to the of province and that was significant because that opened up in extensive communication in fact many many chuvot of the Rambam which are not in the letters volumes are exchanges with the provenance uh and uh they are cornerstones of of uh rabbitic rabbitic literature. So the letter I want to start today uh is not a public letter or a quasi public letter. Once again, it's a private letter, but it's also to a person who is a native of Provence. And it is a very, very interesting letter because it does combine halaka and philosophy with a lot of personal stuff in which you really get a little bit of an insight uh in the Rambam being a bit irritated sometimes, which no one can understand. And this is a letter to Rav Pinhas Sako Pinas Coen Dian Pinhas Sako Dian in Alexandria. So remember the Rambam lived in Fustad which was a neighborhood of Cairo and Pinnasian lived was the head dian in Alexandria not too far but not not next door. And interestingly enough which was not that often in those days. Rabbitkco Sadayan was a native of Provence [snorts] who left France to assume a position in Alexandria even though he was never familiar with Arabic. I mean he he really could not speak Arabic. He spoke I don't know what he spoke Hebrew, French. It's not clear what language he spoke. Well I guess he knew Hebrew and he knew French. uh but he was the Dian or one of the Diana Alexandria and it would be nice actually to see the letters that he wrote. In other words, we only have the Rambam's answers. We don't have the letters that he wrote. Uh but basically uh the Rambam wrote several letters to him. And you could see that the Rambam had a bit of a lovehate relationship uh with Pinasadian. uh because Adian has certain behaviors that today maybe I shouldn't use these terms might be described as passive aggressive in terms of various attacks that he has uh on the Rambam uh and um it starts off uh at least from the Rambam when the Rambam is summarizing the letter he says uh first of all I know you write me that why don't I ever answer your letters and the Rambam says, "Number one, I was very, very sick. I was up to the gates of death. Uh, number two, I do answer your letters when I can. Uh, [clears throat] and then says, why are you so angry at me?" So, the Rambam says, "Well, I did get angry at you, and the truth is what you did to me would even make Hil Hazok angry." Now this is a reference to the famous story if you remember Shabas that the great Hill was famous for never ever ever getting angry and two men made a bet. I bet you I can get Hillow angry. And this was Araf Shabas. And goes to different stories where Hill was bathing and washing his hair. And every few minutes uh this guy would knock at the door and ask some kind of crazy question like why do some people have slit eyes and some people have flat feet? And every time Hill would answer uh and then go back to what he was doing and the guy would then knock again and Hillow would answer. So the end of the story is that the person says, "May there not be people like you in the world." So Hill says, "What did I do wrong?" And he says, "You cost me 400 silver pieces because I lost my bets because I couldn't I couldn't get you angry." So the Rambam writes to Sako, "You know, the thing you did to me would even make Hill angry, so don't complain." So what is the misa? So the Rambam says the following. The Rambam quotes what Saday wrote. This is shortly after the appearance of the Mishna Torah. And he makes it sound like he's trying to defend the Rambam, but the Rambam sees through it. He says, and this is actually a quote from the letter, I'm in Alexandria, and all the people come to me from one end to the other. whether they're old or young. This is talking and they come to me saying we cannot bear these words of the Rambam that you're telling us all the time. Meaning this is talking this is what they said about the Rambam. You permit whatever you want to permit and you asser whatever you want to asser. Uh we have our traditions and you're changing all of our traditions. So says to the Rambam, he says, "I tried to defend you, but what can I do? Everybody's attacking you. Everybody's saying you're wrong. Everybody is saying you're changing men. Hug him. What can I do?" And the Ram was very [clears throat] furious. The Ram says first of all when you make it sound like everybody everybody came the whole city came obviously a few people came and you're exaggerating it as if everybody is against me and the Rambam says you know that's that comes from a certain hostility that you yourself have second of all the Rambam says okay I'm not sure if this is true but this is what he says obviously the people who disagreed with me are amarat are ignorant people. So you you shouldn't build them up as if they're relying on traditions and sources. Now you're painting a negative picture of attack on me by putting it in the mouths of other people when in fact it represents your own hostility. You see that the Rambam is really kind. This Pinasako is getting under the Rambam's uh the Rambam skin. Now the particular issue is actually very very interesting issue. Let me give you a little background. Uh this goes back to the takonas Ezra. This is mentioned in the Gomorrah extensively. a takana that goes all the way back to Ezra at the beginning of the second temple period where Ezra was mitaken that a balary that means a man that has a seinal emission an emission of sperm whether it's through marital intercourse or not makes no difference is not allowed to davin or say words of Torah until they go to the mikvah. Okay, this is a takra that a balary is aer in braosil and dra to unless they go to the mikvah. Now the Gomorrah itself indicates that as this became more and more difficult for many people at some point the takana of Ezra was nullified was bel and that's why the laa actually is that a balary even without going to the mikvah is allowed to learn Torah den and say this is called baklzra and in the language of the gammorra The impurity of carry does not affect Torah and right so that's the basic now now part of why even some non-assidum make a point of going to the mikvah every day cabalistically there are spiritual benefits but but technically it's in the event that they they saw Terry and they never know you never know uh they do this to to fulfill buildas Ezra on a voluntary on a voluntary uh basis. Now apparently the minhog in Europe diverged between Christian countries and Muslim countries. You know Muslims are very big into washing. They do all sorts of washing. So the mug in Muslim countries was that they would not d until I mean Jews Jews in Muslim countries still kept Takanas Ezra on a voluntary basis. The Jews in Christian countries did not. Now people don't always understand what is a minog and what is a den. The Rambam writes in the Mishna Torah that according to the Ezra is and you don't have to go to the mikvah. But the people in Alexandria were going to the mikvah and they thought the Rambam was changing. They did. And the Rambam explains, "Of course the min is to do so." And the Rambam says, "I always do so. I always do so but that is a min and that is the basis of the Christian countries not doing it. And then he gives to because he says to you knew that very well because you come from France you come from provenance where you come from. They weren't going to the mikvah. So when people are criticizing me through you, how can he take away the to go to the mikvah, why didn't you say that this is not a min that is obligatory? The point is himself knew that it was not obligatory because where he came from they didn't do it. Right? So uh that was one criticism uh that that that he had. By the way, I do want to mention that without getting into the laws of mikvah, generally speaking, right, a mikvah has to be an accumulation of rainwater that has not gone through metal pipes or buckets or the like. That's why essentially the way a mikvah works is unless it's a natural spring is is there are holes in the roof and the water enters the mikvah through a conduit such as plastic or rubber. This is very important. If it enters through metal or it enters through vessels uh it is not a kosher mikvah. That's why a bathtub cannot be a kosher mikvah precisely because pipings are metal and the like. However, what's interesting is for takas Ezra, we actually have a tremendous leniency that takra does not require an absolutely kosher mikvah. Takan Ezra can be fulfilled by a shower. Not a not a bath but a shower pouring water from a vessel. So according to that, interestingly enough, even even though a person might not be aware of it, if a person person takes a shower, if a man takes a shower before with the faith, before Davening, uh they in effect have been yay, takra, but obviously that doesn't work. when you really need a mikvah like a woman that's a need of course that's a of immersion in a mikvah so that requires a mikvah but since immersion for takra even when it was obligatory now it's not even obligatory but even when it was obligatory was only a draan it was not a dissa so they did allow the pouring of water and that applied even in the time of the gamorra when it was obligatory and it applies today. So the fact that to go to a mikvah is is a on top of a in other words it's ara that they're following takra and it's anotherra that they're following takra by insisting on a mikvah even though the takzra itself did not require a mikvah. So that's a ara on top of a uh the Rambam however seems to also indicate that he voluntarily would go to the mikvah and he said he was never muvate this practice except when he was ill. Okay so that was the that was the first thing. Now the second issue uh is um criticisms that the pinfus has on the Mishna Torah and number of things were discussed previously. uh he basically says to the Rambam, you know, uh without people learning the Gomorrah, they don't really understand the halos. And the Rambam says, well, I never stopped them from learning Gomorrah. And he even says, you know, I have students I teach and for a year and a half, we haven't learned my code at all. Uh one group of students I learned the of the riff and one or two students I even learned with. Okay, first you got to this is pretty grudging but they insisted they wanted to learn Gomorrah with me so I learned Gomorra with them so I do Gmorra. Okay. But then he makes an interesting point about sources and he says you criticize me because if a was said by basil or rabbi I don't say who is the originator of the Rambam says you don't understand something. First of all, in the hakama to the Mishna Torah, the Rambam does list most of the tanoim and from whom we get the second of all the authority of a pronouncement is not based on the authority of the individual who said it. It's based on its acceptance by the hundreds and thousands of who consider it. In other words, if Raven and Ravashi who who are the editors and chief of the Babylonian Talmud bring certain views and indicate that that is the because of the rabbi that said the view. It's because it was certified and approved by the anonymous rabbitic establishment Israel. So for me to indicate that this is binding because it's Rabi Yaka or this is binding because it's B that would imply that its authority comes from the speaker. But its authority does not come from the speaker. The authority comes from the m the anonymous who validated this as correct. So I specifically do not want to attribute to individual people because the authority of a does not come from the individual person. It comes from the acceptance by Israel who are again hundreds and thousands of them who are largely anonymous but they accepted this as the that's one point that he makes. A second point that he makes is that everything he says in the Mishna Torah is sourced. Now this is actually interesting because there's a curious omission here is sourced from five foundational texts. First and foremost Babylonian tomat that's the Mishna and the Gammoria the tomic bi that's the main one. Second is to shi. Third is tofta which is an appendix to the Mishna that has many many hakic views. Fourth is the medish on the book of vayikra that is the cifra. And fifth is the medish onim that goes by a single name cifi. Right? These are the fiveic sources. Bavi typha cifra cifree. Now there is one very very very curious omission here. I understand the Rambam does not use agade midrashim as a source that's agada that's not but there's one medish that the Rambam does not include in the list and that is the medish on safer that is called the right the midrashim of these are on not And in fact the Gomorrah in fact this is one of the primary sources of the Gomorrah when the Gomorrah quotes often a Brya what does the word bry mean? Brycea means outside meaning it's a teaching of the tanoyim outside of the Mishna. So people sometimes ask well where can I go to find Bryos? There is no book of Bryce. Well actually someone did someone actually made a book of Bryos but that's just taking from the Gmorrah. There is no book that's called safer at Bryos. Brya is not the name of literature. Brycea just means a teaching that is external to the Mishna. So where are bryas? Where did the Gomorrah get the bryer? There are two sources. A bria is either from the topha or the brya is from the hik midrash which is mild and schmosphra onra and cphidim. So midrashim as well as topha are quoted very very often in the gmorrah but not by name. when it says Tanya it'll be from those sources. So med is extremely important although I would have to say it is under learn under underst under underst understudied in yeshivas in fact the malim people don't realize this everyone knows the commentary of the malim so the commentary of the malim on is a commentary on the pukim but you know the commentary of the malim on so on braces it's on the pukim but Shamimos vikrab devorim. The commentary of the malim is not directly on the commentary of the malim is on the medish of multa cifra and cph. Right? Open up a malm on those four and you will see that uh the text of the medish is printed in block letters and the malam is a commentary on the medish. The reason that so is because the malam had a certain agenda. uh the Malvin wrote his work to address the attacks of the reform movement that basically said the rabbitical interpretation of Kish was artificial strained violated the room's rules of grammar and came up with outlandish interpretations that don't fit syntax and the rules of lashes meaning the reform movement took the position that rabbitic interpretation of biblical verses was just an exercise in deception. And the Malin wanted to demonstrate that if you have a deep understanding of Hebrew grammar, Hebrew dict and the meaning of synonyms, you will see that the drashot of kazal are not artificial constructs that are superimposed on a text, but they literally jump out of the text. Okay. The the M was I mean that that actually was I mean obviously he branched off into different things in his commentary but his original agenda what influenced him to write this was his desire to show that to was an authentic deep understanding of the Hebrew language. Okay. And that's why he connected it specifically to which derived from the language of the by the way many didn't like what the malam was doing you know the malim uh was obviously one of the brilliant brilliant gdoleador and if you were a gutador typically you would write commentaries on goa and the like and the malam is writing commentaries on tanakh that was considered to be less of a scholarly pursuit. And uh they they tell the Malam, you're wasting your life, you're wasting your time. Go back and give us all of your manas. And the Malam is said to have remarked that if there's somebody else that is willing to do this work, I'll step aside. Nobody else was willing. But the truth of the matter is um this accusation is a caricature because the Malbim's works are filled with Tmudic scholarship. I mean if you're doing especially if you're doing midra basically a lot of his commentary is drawn from the Gmorrah explaining these various uh risos and the like. So again, forgive me for digressing a little bit, but I'm I'm bringing this up because when the Rambam lists the five sources that he used for, he conspicuously omits the even though the is obviously a maj I honestly don't know why. I I I I do remember my own rash of Weinberg Weinberg made this observation uh but I don't think he gave any particular explanation. The Rambam for some reason did not consider the Multa to have the same authority as the other midrashim. Okay. So point number one the Rambam says is don't accuse me of not having sources. I have five sources. And then he says, "And occasionally when I bring a halaka that is not sourced in those five texts, like from the gaim, I will say gonim the ram will occasionally say the gonim rule and then finally when there's a that I was because of my understanding, I will always say Ali, it appears to me. So the Rambam says if I don't give you a source, it comes from one of those five books. And if it doesn't come from one of those five books, I'll either say it comes from the Gonim or I'll say it comes from me. And as a result, you can always weigh it. If you don't like what I said, you can dismiss it. But if I didn't say it's from me or it's from the gonim is from these five sources. But then he says the raom is mightas that it is a that I don't always tell you. I never and I I never tell you where in those sources it is. And the Rambam gives a a cute story kind of a self-deprecating story. He says, "One of the don in fast on my basin went over to me and said he gave me a copy of my own book Mishna the laws of said they posit he was much older than the Rambam so he could talk to the Rambam this way read this." So the Rambam reads in his own book. Then the Dian says to him, where is that from? Now we know that this is about the laws of Miklat city of refuge. Now we know there's a whole perk in shas devoted to miklat and that is the second perk of meas. So the raam said right off the bat, well it must be in the second paricos. So the dian said wrong. I went through the whole second paracos not there. So the ram says now the raom is a little discombobulated. He says, "Well, maybe the usual." He says, "Wrong. I went through the USI. It's not there. Tossa went through the TPA. Not there." So the Rambam writes, "I was getting a little nervous here." He says, "I couldn't remember where this was." Finally, I told the person, "Okay, you go home and I'm going to look for this and I will get back to you." And an hour later, the Rambam says, "I found it in a very unlikely place. It was a side peripheral reference in Jubamos, meaning it had nothing to do with your mikah. There it was as a little side thing, right? That that's the way the Gmorra works. There are many rulings in different tracks." So I went to the person, I said, "Bingo." So the Rambam said that made me realize I'm the author of this book and if I myself couldn't remember where something was, how are other people supposed to find it? So I decided then I would write a companion volume to the Mishna Torah in which now this is not a complete in which everything that is not found where you would expect it to be found I would annotate it meaning meaning that still leaves a lot to the student any law of mikl as in the second paric of makos or shami I'm not going to tell you what page it is or whatever it But anything that is in an out of the way track day I would annotate. Now he says I'm not going to add the annotation to the text itself because I don't want to confuse the text. The text is supposed to be with no distractions. But it will be a companion volume to the Mishna Torah and I would only annotate where the source is not in the expected place. As far as we know, the Rambam never wrote this book. And we talked about this a number of times. One of the main activities of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of commentator and Ramba is to try to give his sources. That is what the Mid Mishna did. That is what the Kes Mishna did. And to this very day uh there are certain in the Ram that we don't have the exact source for. Rafim Kfki a gut of of our era added many many new sources and even he with his tremendous tremendous piki did not fully uh do this 100%. So the truth of the matter is I think what we are discovering is that the Rambam did draw on more than five sources meaning I think Kasher who wrote an encyclopedic work called to that that incorporates zillions of midrashim that neither you nor I have ever heard of. I mean he has like every possible medish tries to say that the Rambam drew on many of these largely unknown midrashim uh because he does find sources for that. On the other hand that does contradict the Rambam's own words that he primarily stuck to Bavi Rushi toa Cifra and Cphrey. Um so this is an issue that the Rambam himself identified and he again he's a little annoyed because he says through a pin instead of you're saying I say things without sources you want to say I say things without mentioning the sources because see the rabb took umbrage here and says you're implying I say things without sources nothing I say is without sources but you are partially ly correct that perhaps I should have had some vehicle of mentioning the sources. Okay, then we have next week we'll look at some other things. Uh there's a number of other things the Rambam is angry about uh that he will talk about. Okay, have a good week.