Avot186

Today's shiur is dedicated by Melvin Shuter in memory of his wife,
Phyllis K. Shuter, Pesha bat Elimelech z"l,
whose yahrzeit will be on Shabbat, 25 Adar.

23:
Who relates to the Torah inappropriately. It is not quite clear what Rabbi El'azar ha-Moda'i meant by this phrase. The classical commentators have two different views as to the meaning of this phrase.

24:
Rambam, in his commentary on our present mishnah, interprets the phrase as referring to someone who brazenly and publicly contravenes the rules and regulations of the Torah:

Presumably, Rambam derives his understanding of the phrase in our mishnah from what is said in the Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Pe'ah 5a]:

Jehoiakim, King of Judah, was really wicked in the eyes of the author of the book of Kings [2Kings 24:4] because of

25:
However, Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro, in his commentary on the phrase under discussion, understands it differently:

The example given by Rabbi Ovadya is one where the interpretation could be sustained by the text (with a little imagination), but is clearly not the original intent of the text. Here, again, the commentator has probably drawn his thought from a comment in the Gemara [Sanhedrin 99b] where the verse quoted by Rambam above [Numbers 15:30-31] "Any person who acts haughtily [… is insulting God]" is interpreted as referring to

In Avot 181 I wrote: The first item in the list of Rabbi El'azar is the desecration of Israel's sancta. In his commentary on our present mishnah Rambam – incredibly! – understands the term sancta to be referring to sacrifices!

Martin Berman writes:

I started to write that I have found this in the Bartenura not the Rambam – but I looked in some other versions and they do record that comment. I saw that he Vilna Gaon relates this to the verse in Ezekiel 22:8. It would seem to me that this is in keeping with the interpretation of the Radak on that verse:

It would seem that the Rambam is associating the two verbs of the verse as well as the two verbs used by Rabbi El'azar namely m'vazeh and m'halel which appear in both places.

As to your reference to Sanhedrin: Thus it seems more than reasonable that they understood the teaching of Rabbi El'azar as saying that the desecration of Israel's sancta is the desecration and denigration of God: in one word the 'apikoros' or 'epikoros'. It is possible that they are referring to the latter part of his statement (although I must admit it seems to work better if they are including all of it). Furthermore isn't this a unique usage of kodashim – sancta to say that it is a reference to ideas and not the more common usage of sacrifices?

I respond:

Clearly Rambam's interpretation can be substantiated, so perhaps I was a little rash to think that it was incredible. But it still seems to me rather strange that he should have opted for such an interpretation when the theological one was staring him in the face, as it were. I have not had the time to check whether the term kodashim is elsewhere treated as ideas rather than sacrifices. But even if this were the only example I do not think that it would make the argument any the less cogent.