army military war - Were Amalek offered a peaceful exit?

Inspired by this:

The Rambam in Hilchos Melachim 6:1 writes:

אין עושין מלחמה עם אדם בעולם, עד שקוראין לו לשלום--אחד מלחמת הרשות, ואחד מלחמת מצוה

War is not waged with anyone in the world until they were offered peace...

and in 6:6 the Rambam includes Amalek in this rule:

אבל שבעה עממין ועמלק שלא השלימו, אין מניחין מהם נשמה

If the Seven Nations or Amalek do not accept peace, wipe them out.

In the story of King Saul's war on Amalek (Samuel 1 15:1-9), there is no mention of any offering of peace before Amalek is destroyed. Is there any reference to such a communication, and if not how does the Rambam know to include Amalek in this rule? I would have considered that as Hashem is in a constant state of war with Amalek (Shemos 17:16) and we are instructed to erase their memory (Devarim 25:19), there would be an objective desire to have the war with them, and making peace would not suffice.

Answer

The Chidushei HaGriz (§ 161) comments that the narrative between Shmuel and Shaul is a basis for the Rambam's opinion in 6:4. In verse 18, Sh'mu'el says that Sha'ul was told to destroy אֶת-הַחַטָּאִים אֶת-עֲמָלֵק:

And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said: Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. (Mechon Mamre translation)

The Brisker Rav inferred that this indicates that they did not accept the seven mitzvos or terms for peace (both of which are necessary criteria according to the Kesef Mishne's interpretation of the Rambam¹), otherwise they would not have been called "sinners":

שמואל א' (ט"ו י"ח) וישלחך ה' בדרך ויאמר לך והחרמתה את החטאים את עמלק וגו'. מדקאמר "את החטאים" מכאן מקור לשיטת הרמב"ם פ"ו מה' מלכים ה"ד, דעמלק אם קבל ז' מצוות והשלים אין הורגים אותו, ע"ש ודו"ק.

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¹_{The Kesef Mishne writes (ibid.): אפשר לטעון בעד רבינו ולומר שבכלל השלימו הוא קבלת שבע מצות שאם קבלו עליהם שבע מצות הרי יצאו מכלל שבעה עממין ומכלל עמלק והרי הם כבני נח הכשרים. This seems to put the Rambam's opinion at odds with the position of the M'chilta (end of B'shalach): ר' אליעזר אומר נשבע המקום בכסא הכבוד שלו שאם יבא אחד מכל אומות העולם להתגייר שיקבלוהו ולעמלק ולביתו לא יקבלוהו.}

translation - Use of いける in this sentence

戦術{せんじゅつ}と戦闘{せんとう}どっちもいける奴{やつ}には勝{か}てない。

The translation of this seems to be

(He) will not win against someone who can do both strategy and fighting

However this is the first I've seen いける used to mean "can do". I would have understood どっちもできる, so am I translating correctly? Else in what context can one be substituted for the other?

Answer

行{い}ける vs. いける

When a common word that is usually written using kanji is written in kana, you can be 99% sure that it is being used for its "new" and/or colloquial (sometimes slangy) meaning.

So, 「行ける」 means "to be able to go", but 「いける」 means something else. What does it mean, then? Let us quote from デジタル大辞泉.

動{どう}カ下一{しもいち}］《行{い}くことができる意{い}から》

１ 相当{そうとう}にうまくできる。「歌{うた}だけでなく、踊{おど}りも―・ける」

２ 相当の量{りょう}の酒{さけ}が飲{の}める。「なかなか―・ける口{くち}だ」

３ 飲食物{いんしょくぶつ}の味{あじ}がよく、おいしい。いただける。「ここの料理{りょうり}はちょっと―・ける」

That briefly translates to:

1 To be able to perform quite well

2 To be able to drink in large quantities

3 To taste good. Tasty, delicious.

So, the word has very positive meanings.

「戦術{せんじゅつ}と戦闘{せんとう}どっちもいける奴{やつ}には勝{か}てない。」

thus means:

"It is hard to beat a guy who is very good at both strategy and (actual) fighting."

transitivity - とまる / とめる and such pairs of verbs

I'm a beginner in Japanese. At my classes I'm taught like this: とまる / とめる is a pair intransitive/transitive verb.

This I understand and can memorize a table of such verbs.

I can't help, though, notice a certain phonetic change pattern in all those pairs. To this pattern in my classes I was given no explanation.

I wonder if there is any theoretical grammar explanation of that pattern for those Japanese verbs. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any good Japanese theoretical grammar textbook.

(In my native language and in some other languages I know transitive/intransitive is a lexical, not grammatical category, so I wonder, if that transitive/intransitivre explanation for Japanese is correct at all)

Answer

Historically, Japanese has had several morphemes that change the transitivity of a verb. Most of these pairs involved lexicalised combinations of some verb with one of these morphemes.

The morphemes are:

-(a)su - causative. You can see it in words like ゆらす ('cause to shake', compare ゆれる 'shake').

-(a)ru - passive, or rather, general agent deletion (English's passive implies an agent, this doesn't). Visible in your example とまる ('come to a stop on one's own', compare とめる 'cause something else to stop').

-e(ru) - a kind of transitivity flipper, it can make transitives intransitive or intransitives transitive. An example of the first is さける ('split open', compare さく 'tear'), and an example of the second is つける ('attach', compare つく 'stick to').

Many of these pairs, とめる~とまる included, seem to have had these morphemes added to both members.

I'm not sure this is a grammatical process, at least any more; none of these morphemes are still productive as far as I know. You're probably best off remembering each word as a single lexical unit, especially considering the fact that there's a good deal of variation among what pairs up with what. Just remembering that あげる is 'raise' and あがる is 'rise' prevents you from trying to make non-words like *あがす or *あぐ.

(The Middle Japanese -(a)su and -(a)ru were nidan verbs, and became the ichidan -(a)seru and -(a)reru, which are still extremely productive in Modern Japanese. I don't have an explanation for why verb forms that incorporate them are godan.)

hashkafah philosophy - Where can I get Aryeh Kaplan’s מורה אור?

The author Aryeh Kaplan was well known for writing many scholarly English books about Judaism. After his death, several of his unpublished manuscripts were eventually published. One of them was a Hebrew manuscript. This was published under the name Moreh Ohr, מורה אור.

It seems to be out of stock. Any suggestions, where to get it specifically, for purchase. In any country too - Israel, USA etc. online, or scanned in PDF?

p.s.

I’ve contacted quite a few booksellers and the like which I could get my hands on - to no avail. Also, if it is in your possession, consider adding to to Hebrewbooks and the like possibly - Googlebooks doesn’t seem to want to release it to the public.

_{Look inside, too!}

Answer

It's available in PDF here for free.

Until Hebrewbooks can upload it, at least.

Enjoy.

grammar - What does "nanode" mean? What are its grammatical rules?

What's the meaning of this sentence and what does なので mean here? If possible, I would like to know the grammatical rules of なので as well.

英語と日本語なので私にとっても良い勉強になります。

sources mekorot - Everything is in the Torah

Someone mentioned that there is a statement of our Rabbis, "There is nothing on earth that is not hinted at in the Torah."*

Does anyone know where such a statement can be found?

Answer

One source for this is the introduction of the Ramban to Sefer Bereishis, where he says that the 50 gates of wisdom minus one that were given to Moshe represent knowledge about all that is in creation, and this was all given to Moshe, either explictly or hinted to in a letter, the forms of the letters, changes in the forms of the letters, Gematrios, etc. in the Torah.

This is also the commonly understood meaning of what the Zohar says "אסתקל בה באורייתא וברא עלמא" - G-d looked in the Torah and created the world, that for anything to exist it has to exist in the Torah first, and thus the Torah determines what it is.

bond - Molecular orbital theory & predicting the stability of a molecule?

A question in my general chemistry textbook gives me a list of formulas for molecules and ions. It then asks me to determine, using molecular orbital theory, whether or not each would exist in a relatively stable form.

How can I tell this? The chapter covers molecular shapes, valence bond theory, and molecular orbital theory which all builds on what was taught in the previous chapter (mainly on Lewis structures.) I can't tell what concepts to use in telling what will be stable and what won't.

Answer

You need to mix the orbitals, populate them with the electrons and see if you have net bonding.

Eg: H + H two 1s orbitals mix to form sigma and sigma*. Two electrons total, both occupy the sigma orbital, two more electrons in bonding than antibonding orbitals, the compound is stable.

Eg: He + He; same mixing as above. Four electrons, two in the sigma, two in the sigma*. Since there are as many bonding electrons as as antibonding, there is no net bond. He2 is not possible.

Eg: He + H; same mixing as above. Three electrons, two in sigma, one in sigma*. One more electron in bonding than antibonding. He-H forms a very weak bond. Please note the diagram is for He2+ but the He-H is very similar

Eg: Li + H; Li has 1s + 2s, while H has 1s. This mix to form a sigma orbital from H1s+Li2s, a sigma* orbital and H1s-Li2s, and a non bonding orbital from Li1s (lower in energy than the sigma). Four total electrons. Nonbonding sigma is occupied, and then the sigma orbital is occupied. Net effect: Li-H forms a stable bond.

You might have noticed that the first three diagrams had identical structure, even if their energy levels were different. This is a property of quantum mechanical symmetry, and solving the problem only requires knowing a few diagram types and filling the electrons in. Consider the second row. The diagram is as :

You simply count the valence electrons and fill in the diagram. Then you subtract the number of bonding orbital electrons from antibonding, and if you have more, you will have a bond.

A couple of webpages are very good for further explanation:

Source of the diagrams: http://www.chem1.com/acad/webtext/chembond/cb08.html

and http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/39_diatomics/diatomics.html