[Avodah] Niskatnu haDoros

[Daniel Israel]

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:33:50 -0600 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>It's not the SA that cauysed the
>change in era, it was the qualitative loss in chokhmah and mesiras
>nefesh (reishis chokhmah yir'as Hashem) that forced the writing of 
>the SA to prevent even more from being lost.

Minor quibble: by the time of the SA there writing was normative.  
So perhaps the loss associated with the changing era didn't force 
the writing of the SA, rather it forced the acceptance of the SA as 
authoritative.  Or do you have some source for saying that the 
mechaber wrote specifically out of concern for the possible loss?

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu