[Avodah] history

[Michael Makovi]

> You write that "ancient people in general were less historically critical"
> thus seeming to lump Chazal in with those uncritical, naive ancient people
> to whom we moderns naturally feel quite superior.  We are oh so much more
> intellectually sophisticated than those ancient people.
>  ...
> This is not at all the proper way to look at Chazal.
> ...
> But we must never "cut Chazal down to size" by assuming that they were just
> regular people, no smarter than us, that they were primitive, childlike,
> superstitious and naive in their way of viewing the world.   That is the
> Conservative, not the Orthodox, way of analyzing the teachings of Chazal.
>
> But even those who want to come to some non-literal
> understanding must not speak condescendingly about Chazal.  We are all
> whippersnappers in comparison to them.
>
> Our religion depends on our accepting the authority of Chazal.
>
>
> --Toby Katz
> =============

I never meant it as condescension, and I never meant to subtract from
the authority of the Chazal. But the simple fact is, people back then
didn't have as much critical historical sense, period. It's nothing
against Chazal, but a simple fact. If nothing else, the fact that
Chazal weren't historians and didn't care about history, means they
never got to develop a critical historical sense, i.e. through
practice. Even if the potential was there, it was never actualized.

Mikha'el Makovi