There you go with your childish “checkmate” again. Well, for your information, Rashi and Rambam are both Rishonim, and have the right to argue with one another. So, who decided that this Rashi is to be understood specifically as the Rambam has it?
And, for your information, Maharal (in his Chiddushei Aggados on that same passage in the Gemara) says that Rashi means exactly what he says. He writes:
שהוא יתברך עלת הכל, ואי אפשר לעלה שלא ישפיע, וכאילו הוא דבר מחויב… ולכך אמר שהקב”ה מתאוה לברכת כהנים, כי מתאוה העלה במה שהוא עלה להשפיע. ויותר מזה ממה שהתינוק רוצה לינק האשה רוצה להניק… ולפיכך נקרא דבר זה צורך גבוה
“He is the Cause of everything, and it is *impossible* (emphasis mine) for a cause to not give forth; it is as though he is *required to do so*… Thus (the Gemara there) says that ‘Hashem desires Birkas Kohanim,” because the Cause, qua Cause, desires to give forth; ‘more than the baby wants to suckle, the woman wants to nurse’… Therefore this is called ‘G-d’s need.'”
Note that the Maharal postdates Rambam, and evidently found it quite unnecessary to say that all of this is only anthropomorphic.
(An even starker example: Sifri, Devarim 33:5, states that “when you (Jewish people) are My witnesses, I am G-d; when you are not My witnesses, I am not G-d.”)
[I can make no claim to be so familiar with Torah literature as to have found the above sources myself. ברוך שמסר עולמו לשומרים: they (and others) can be found in R. Yehoshua Hartman’s notes to Maharal’s Gevuros Hashem, ch. 23.]
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About your questions, answer below. I’ll first point out that it’s a sickness to demand that one “agree” with a gadol b’Yisroel who says this or that, as though the validity of their opinion depends on whether I “agree” with it. It’s time you learned the gaping difference between sports or politics or whatever, and Torah, where our lodestone is emunas chachamim and anivus and shiflus before those who have molded their thought processes according to Torah.
1. The Rayatz:
You probably mean the Rashab, as the letter quoted at the beginning of this thread is from him. Well, he *doesn’t* say that religious Zionists are kofrim. There’s exactly one place in the letter where he speaks of kefirah,* and that is in the following paragraph:
“Their entire desire and aim is to cast off the yoke of the Torah and the Mitzvot and to hold fast only to nationalism (le’umiyut), and this will be their Judaism. This was stated not long ago by one of their special leaders in a public article, blaspheming and reviling all of Judaism…”
So you tell me. Were R. Reines or R. Kook, etc., “blaspheming and reviling,” ch”v? It’s quite obvious that that paragraph is referring to the secular Zionists, of the ilk of Herzl and Nordau and so forth. Only later on does he talk about the religious Zionists, stating that they’re wrong in supporting the secular Zionists in their nationalistic aims. Now, if you can find another letter from the Rashab or the Rayatz or the Ramam calling religious Zionists “kofrim,” then we can talk.
* I could be pedantic, and point out that even there the Rashab doesn’t use “kefirah” or any form of the word; he calls their ideas שרש פורה ראש ולענה, “a root that produces gall and wormwood.” That phrase in its original context (Devarim 29:17) does indeed refer to heretical ideas, so the “automated translation” in the OP isn’t absolutely wrong, but it does point up that your arguments would be stronger if you could read the sources in the original rather than relying on translations.
2. R. Avigdor Miller:
He draws an analogy between television and ספרים החיצונים (external/heretical literature), of which Chazal indeed say that one who reads them has no share in Olam Haba (Sanhedrin 90a and 100b). To my daas baal habayis this seems a fair and in fact obvious inference, so your beef would really be with Chazal. One might ask whether any Torah authority disagrees with R. Miller on this (unlike with religious Zionism, where of course there’s an endless amount of controversy); if you can find such, then we have a basis to talk. “I don’t like what he says” is not such a basis.
(Worth noting: there are Rishonim such as Rabbeinu Bechayei (end of Acharei Mos) and the Recanati (Ki Sisa) who say that the phrase “he has no portion in Olam Haba” doesn’t mean that he’s excluded entirely, just that they’ve lost their own individual portion, and are like a poor person, having to be supported by charity from “the hidden treasures of tzedakah.” Perhaps we can take R. Miller’s statement in the same vein; in the Olam Haemes or at the time of techiyas hameisim, if I have the opportunity, I can ask.)