txt/Responsa/Geonim/Teshuvot HaGeonim (Harkavy)/English/Sefaria Community Translation.txt

Teshuvot HaGeonim (Harkavy)
תשובות הגאונים (הרכבי)
Sefaria Community Translation
https://www.sefaria.org

Teshuvot HaGeonim (Harkavy)





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And the questioner asks it is written in the notebook of Yehoshua ben Levi that a one born on Sunday will be...etc., and Hanina retorted: Say to him, to ben Levi, it is not the mazal of the day that is effective, rather it is the mazal of the hour that effects everything and Hanina said that mazal makes wise and mazal makes rich, and there is a mazal over Israel, because of that they are wise and rich.  Furthermore, Raba said longevity, livelihood, and progeny do not depend on merit or good works; they depend on mazal.  It is not a problem for us, albeit it is for the ben Levi and Hanina since most rabbinical authorities hold that there is no mazal over Israel.  And according to Rabbi Judah, Rav said that we hold this way because it is supported by [the Midrashic dictum]: '...And He took him outside' meaning that 'go out from the space mandated to the astral powers'.  All in all, the rule is that there is no mazal over Israel - for the nations of the world there is a mazal over them. 
However, indeed they [the nations of the world] are commanded regarding theft, adultery, and bloodshed.  And whether it is the mazal of the day or the mazal of the hour that effects his being a theif or an adulterer or a bloodshedder, nonetheless, he is responsible and that the mazal effected it, is a problem for us.
And like when Elazar ben Porat had to decide a difficult problem, so it is for us: he prayed the God enlighten him and God suggested to him that it is possible to set aside a free-will offering  at the moment one sits to down to eat, and so the problem depends on the possiblity.  
Thus, the astrologers to see the stellar world are of two types:  One type attributes every occurence to mazal and says that even a man's movements and his emotions depend on mazal and from there [the stellar world] distress comes to here because what is there is here. And every earthly occupation is like a kind of coin, that the hours that move around to be stamped and the stellar mazalot are like a kind of stamp that that contains them and stamps them in its likeness, neither more or less.  And these [astrologers], do not acknowledge God and they differ from us. 
And there is another group of them that say that man employs his wisdom to do things that are not effected by mazal and is able to undo what mazal has effected.  And there are also two sorts of this type.  One holds that everything depends on man's soul and say that a man's spirit and soul is  most splendid and elevated in him and is essentially above the stellar world and the mazalot and it is able and he also with its power to change whatever mazal effects.  And the other sort holds that everything depends on God, the Master of the Universe, and say that He created in man the ability to undo what his mazal effected in him.  And between the two of these, there is a final say that holds that whereas mazal brings hot weather for a tree to grow in its time, a man is able to to carry it from its place and cool it and this is not about life [of the tree] itself, for the tree is from God, and here we have an explanation for both its growth and suppression of its growth.  And this too solves the problem of theft and adultery for both groups of astrologers: one holds that mazal does not effect anything other than lust and ordinary appetite; it is as when a man's desire becomes the yearning of his heart and he gains control of himself and quiets himself regarding that which he wishes to possess by theft or by adultery and is able to control his lust and to overcome it, as is the case with ordinary evil inclinations, which at times overwhelms a man and he must struggle against it and he is able to conquer it.