Rav Dessler On Reality and Perception, part II
(This post is an erratum and addendum to points made in "Rav Dessler On Reality and Perception".)
1: A correction. I wrote that in order to experience miracles, one must lift themselves into a world where moral law is more absolute than physical law. This is only partly true. Alternatively, Hashem can push the person into that world -- as need requires. This is how the Egyptians experienced the miraculous turning of water into blood. It was obviously not a merit that allowed them to experience a non-natural punishment. Rav Dessler concludes chapter 3 of our essay, "All perceptions of olam ha'asiyah are not absolute at all, but are relative to the needs of the topic." (p 310)
Whether the difference is one of merit or of need (which in turn is usually caused by merit), the thesis stands: There is no reason to assume that just because the people of that generation experienced a flood, people of our era must find evidence of that flood.
2: The relationship between perception and reality is the subject of the next paragraphs, the first two of chapter 4: "We find that we learn according to this that our perception is itself the reality of the world for us. ... This perspective seems strange to us, but it is only because we live in olam ha'asiyah and see the physical as literally (mamash) absolute..." (Note: The Hebrew actually borrows the word "absolute" throughout the essay.)
This is pretty clearly a phenomenologist position. (Phenomenology: A philosophy based on the intuitive experience of phenomena, and on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as consciously perceived by human beings.)
3: Rav Dessler himself extends the inability to experience miracles with the inability to experience their legacy. This is why we compute the molad from a point in the creation year, without accounting for the month that took fewer days because one of them was extended when the sun stood still for Yehoshua.
1: A correction. I wrote that in order to experience miracles, one must lift themselves into a world where moral law is more absolute than physical law. This is only partly true. Alternatively, Hashem can push the person into that world -- as need requires. This is how the Egyptians experienced the miraculous turning of water into blood. It was obviously not a merit that allowed them to experience a non-natural punishment. Rav Dessler concludes chapter 3 of our essay, "All perceptions of olam ha'asiyah are not absolute at all, but are relative to the needs of the topic." (p 310)
Whether the difference is one of merit or of need (which in turn is usually caused by merit), the thesis stands: There is no reason to assume that just because the people of that generation experienced a flood, people of our era must find evidence of that flood.
2: The relationship between perception and reality is the subject of the next paragraphs, the first two of chapter 4: "We find that we learn according to this that our perception is itself the reality of the world for us. ... This perspective seems strange to us, but it is only because we live in olam ha'asiyah and see the physical as literally (mamash) absolute..." (Note: The Hebrew actually borrows the word "absolute" throughout the essay.)
This is pretty clearly a phenomenologist position. (Phenomenology: A philosophy based on the intuitive experience of phenomena, and on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as consciously perceived by human beings.)
3: Rav Dessler himself extends the inability to experience miracles with the inability to experience their legacy. This is why we compute the molad from a point in the creation year, without accounting for the month that took fewer days because one of them was extended when the sun stood still for Yehoshua.
posted by micha @ 2/22/2006 05:01:00 PM
David Guttmann at 5:20 AM: 
