4 - ‘Greek Wisdom’ as Secular Knowledge and Science

Summary

Ben Damah, the son of R. Ishmael's sister, once asked R. Ishmael: May one such as I, who have studied the whole of the Torah, learn Greek wisdom? He thereupon read to him the following verse: This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night (Joshua I: 8). Go then and find a time that is neither day nor night and learn then Greek wisdom. This, however, is at variance with the view of R. Samuel b. Nahmani. For R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: This verse is neither duty nor command, but a blessing (for the Holy One, blessed be He, promised Joshua that ‘this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth’).

BABYLONIAN TALMUD, Menachot, 99b

R. Eleazar ben Hisma said: Astronomy and geometry are like the savouries of wisdom.

Pirkei AllOt, 3: 23

If the reading of your own scripture is sufficient for you, why do you nibble at the learnings of the Hellenes?

JULIAN, Against the Galilaeans, 229 c (trans. W. C. Wright)

Be not troubled with fears, my Father,

for I will learn the secular tongue only to enhance knowledge

and to introduce the beauty of Japheth into the tents of Shem.

The wisdom will not be iniInical to our Torah;

Our fathers and their fathers before them

also sought it throughout the generations:

and who knows as you do, my father and teacher,

that only men of learning sat in the Sanhedrin

and that all of our Sages were wise men?

JUDAH LEIB GORDON, Shenei Yosif ben Shimon

Only a fanatical believer like Omar would assert that all the chokhmot are in the Koran, but we know that not all the chokhmot are found in the Torah, and it is not opposed to all the chokhmot and all the systems, since it did not inquire into and interpret philosophy, but rather the life of the people.

PERETZ SMOLENSKIN, ‘Mishpat ami’ (‘The Fate of my People’)