[Avodah] . Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Michael Makovi)

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 04:36:14PM -0400, Meir Shinnar wrote:
: The argument that the unity of klal yisrael does not affect one's
: relationship to hashem is, to my mind, quite startling...

And not made.

Davening at home rather than hearing shofar by taking a car affects
one's relationship to Hashem. But there is no "eis la'asos" for someone
who usually attends shul to get to shofar blowing in such a scenario.

Eis la'asos requires near total loss of that relationship.

...
: 2) I think that RMB misunderstands Rav Uziel zt"l psak - and tries to
: understand it from the context of other positions.   The issue of
: gerut is amech ami ve'elokaich elokai - and the question is the
: relative weight and need for specific kabbalat ol hamitzvot - versus
: that by becoming ami one will perforce be performing mitzvot.  The
: notion that kabbalat ol hamitzvot is the  central and dominant part of
: conversion is so deeply ingrained that the notion that there are other
: positions seems incomprehensible.

Not only incomprehensible, but digarded by halachic process. Yes, ol
malkhus Shamayim, milah and tevilah is codified -- that /is/ geirus.

: 3) Finally, WRT RMB's general critique of REB, he is adopting an
: essentially Hegelian position of the hazon ish - that the fact that it
: happened is proof that
: a) hashem wanted it to happen and
: b)Therefore it is a good thing and it reflects a seal of divine
: approval - it should have happened.

This is also in response to something you incorrectly guessed I meant.

I'm presenting the notion as it inheres in maamrei chazal. Not
because history said that this is the right and good. But because
the people actually doing the halachic process did. Starting with the
"shachekhum vechazar veyasdum" stories I already mentioned, add the
famous exchange between Abayei and R' Papa on nisqatnu hadoros, through
to the authoritative (but far from absolute) nature of the SA and nosei
keilim as taken for granted now by centuries of poseqim.

What is to be lamented is the discontinuity which causes the need for
codification. The "Rupture" not the "Reconstruction".

...
: REB's critique of halachic developments is in the same mode - the mere
: fact that halacha developed in a certain fashion because of human
: actions does not mean that this was the primary way or only way that
: halacha should have developed - and the question is the reversibility
: of the process....

Sort of. As RYBS writes, the binding nature of shas is because it was
accepted across kelal Yisrael. And thus, in his day, it was safe to say
that shas was the last book with such authority. However, the SA too
was accepted across kelal Yisrael. As RARakeffet put it -- why do you
study SA for semichah and not the Rambam, Rif or Tur? The MB takes the
the standard page of SA for granted, and tells you he is setting out to
give you a survey of post SA standardization acharonim.

Thus, RYBS concludes, even lefi shitas haRambam, the SA's authority
differs from the gemara's only in degree, not in kind. I admit it's a
kind of projection of what would the Rambam say if we lifted him out of
his time and plunked him into another; a notoriously iffy excercise. But
the sevara seems compelling to me.

OTOH, does anyone follow the gemara's maskanah -- as they see the maskanah
to be -- exclusively and with no exceptions? Not even the Rambam can
say as much.

To state the same argument flipped around, we get an ad absurdum: If
one were to take REB's position as valid, the codifications we call
mishnah and gemara are also lamentable, and we should reconsider our
decision to make them binding. While REB doesn't go that far, his
only reason not to is pragmatic. Centuries of thought, including the
Rambam you mention, are out the window.

At this point in time, the question is whether the losses of the Shoah
will end up placing us in a period of authority less than that of the
acharonim. Now whether we are in a position to dispute the rishonim.

For clarity, the question I was answering was why REB is outside my
own limits of eilu va'eilu. And I answered that to me, his approach
to halakhah has the fluidity that I would put on the C side of the O-C
divide. One that simply can't be justified without a discontinuity in
what one calls halachic process. IOW, the question of "can we roll
it back" is one I can't even entertain, simply because it was never
"rolled back" before. It would be an introduction of something new to
the process. At least, until we get a beis din gadol mimenu bechokhmah
uveminyan. A Gra or a Besht, at least in the eyes of their followers,
can be of a stature to be such an exception to codification.

Which, as I said earlier in this thread, would be the product stellar
talmud Torah with its attempt to internalize, not a talmid chakham
with stellar academic, and hence objective study. This I placed on the
Mada side of TuM, and explained why even had I accepted REB's premises,
I wouldn't accept his pragmatic positions for how that fluidity should
be used.

And thus, to be clear where my critique/tirade was coming from: I'm not
yelling for banning, labeling him a kofeir, or any other such hysterics.
Just as I choose (mostly preconsciously, but not entirely so) which
derekh to follow, I also choose which range of derakhim are divrei E-lokim
Chaim. An idea can be excluded because I feel it is fundamentally wrong
without being labeled kefira.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha at aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter