[Avodah] FW: chemotherapy

[Michael Makovi]

> Below you will find a portion of a comment to a Cross-Currents post and my
> response.  As you can see, my response has received an extended moderation
> period.  I have not received a response to my query to the moderators so I
> thought I would ask the chevra their opinion on my understanding of horrat
> shaah (BTW I assume the original commenter did not really mean irrevocable
> but permanent)
>
> KT
> Joel Rich
>
>
> Regarding the inyan of Hora'as Sha'ah, it seems to be that the writing of
> the Mishna was more than that - it was "Eis La'asos LaShem, Hefeiru
> Torasecha." I would not be surprised if those Sages who decided upon this
> knew that their move would be irrevocable
> ============================================
> I doubt it since aiui a horrat shaah is by definition revocable. IIRC R'
> Schwab in "Rav Schwab on Prayer" mentions that in the future all these
> sfarim will be in the museum but not used. Quite the opposite, I wonder if
> these sages knew that their temporary emergency measure would become
> permanent (separate question as to how), would they have enacted it anyway?
> KT
> Comment by joel rich — January 7, 2008 @ 6:40 am Your comment is awaiting
> moderation.

What you say sounds reasonable. Indeed, I haven't ever seen an
Orthodox author claim that we can go against the Mishna and Talmud.
Even Rabbis Moshe Shmuel Glasner and Eliezer Berkovits, who emphasize
the human and evolutionary elements of TSBP, say that the Talmud is
sealed and we cannot go against it. So problem could there be with
your saying that whereas a hora'at sha'ah is revocable, an eit la'asot
lashem is not?

I might quibble with your terminology, for if a hora'at sha'ah is an
undesirable ruling done only for limited undesirable circumstances
(but which otherwise lacks true halachic desirability), then writing
TSBP was certainly a hora'at sha'ah. An eit la'asot lashem could
simply be a type of hora'at sha'ah, in which the halacha is actually
egregiously violated in order to save another area of Torah (a limb
amputated the save the body, as Rambam puts it). But aside from
terminology, the idea that most hora'ot sha'ah are reversible, but not
the writing of TSBP, seems sound.

What could be the objection?

Mikha'el Makovi