ירידת הדורות: דער מושג, די מקורות, און דער באדייט (וועקער11)

והם יאמרו שהקדמונים שהיו שלמי היצירה יותר ממנו השיגו הצורות ההם אף על פי שאנחנו לא נשיג אותם, וזה הבל, שאיך יעלה על הדעת שתקצר יד האנשים היום בהשגת המוחשים יותר מהקדמונים, והלא כל מי שתקצר יד שכלו יתחזקו הרגשותיו וישיג המוחשים יותר, כמו שנראה הבעלי חיים שאינם בעלי שכל הרגשותיהם הם חזקים יותר מהרגשות האדם

We must first bring into the picture Maimonides’ views on the history of science. Maimonides adheres to a rather simple picture of the steady progress of science over time. Later generations possess more and better knowledge than did earlier generations. The Israelites to whom the creation story, along with the rest of the Torah, was revealed constituted a community of emancipated slaves, who, perhaps, had not fully shaken off their spiritual bondage. Moreover, at that moment in history – well before the time of Aristotle – the level of scientific knowledge that was available was not very high. The Bible, therefore, had good reason to narrate the creation as a story. By the time of the rabbis, science had progressed considerably. Nevertheless, the intellectual level of the masses remained low, and many details, especially in the field of astronomy, remained obscure even to the best of scholars. Thus the rabbis too had to speak in parables. By Maimonides’ own time, however, the situation had changed radically. Astronomy had advanced well beyond what even Aristotle had known. Moreover, a plethora of rich texts, written for the most part in Arabic, made scientific knowledge widely available. There was thus no reason why Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, could not offer the same type of summary account that could be found in a large number of works that were in circulation at the time.

Azariah dei Rossi (1511–1588), the author of Me’or Einayim (1573), was the first to apply Renaissance hermeneutics to Jewish sources with his historical-critical interpretations of aggadot, or rabbinic legends. By demolishing the historicity of some of these legends, he cleared the way for a more modern historiography. But the most important implication of dei Rossi’s book was his refusal to privilege the ancients over the moderns. Where the sayings of the rabbis contradicted modern science, dei Rossi opted for science. Although dei Rossi can hardly be called a secularist, there is nothing more fundamental to a secular point of view than denying that we are dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. As Lester Segal has put it, dei Rossi believed paradoxically that we may be dwarfs, but we see farthest standing on our own two feet

כרם זית

אז שוין יא א מליצה: דער וואס איז מחמיר אויף די איסור פון חדש (דלא כמנהג פולין), איז עובר אויף די איסור פון חדש...

Maimonides, as the representative of the religious Enlightenment, shared the conservative approach concerning primeval monotheism, according to which idolatry constitutes a fall from the primeval state of knowledge of he true God

The religious Enlightenment perceives sacred history as a U shaped curve. On one cusp of the curve is the ancient past, which is regarded as a golden age of knowledge. The present is at the bottom of the curve. As far as the future is concerned, according to this curve we are marching confidently toward a redemption of renewed consciousness of the truth. In the secular Enlightenment schema, which revolves around the idea of cognitive progress, sacred time ("sacred" because it deals with the development of the concept of holiness) has the form of a rising line / with its low point in the primitive past and its peak in the enlightened future

עתים דומה עלי כאילו אותה תחושת-אחרית תחושת-מגן היתה מעיקרה, תחושה שניתקה לרעיון והיתה לאחד מרעיונות-היסוד ששימשו בחינת מחסה לעם, עידוד לנצחונו על הכלייה מראשית קיומו בימי נדודיו ומלכותו, שלא מילאה את לבו הרגשת בטחון-של-קיום. הרבה ישראל להגות בכליונו, לשוות תמיד את אחריתו נגדו – ואותם הגייה ושווי-אחרית הם הם שסייעו לו להתגבר על האחרית, לעמוד בפניה כל שעת משבר וכלייה, כשזו ארבה לו אריבת־ממש; וכך היה עם־אחרית לעם-ראשית, ואחרית לו אין קץ לה.