[Avodah] Horaas Shaah

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:52:41PM -0500, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
: R' YL:
:> I simply do not understand how anyone can decide something as important
:> as TIDE being or not being Horaas Shaah without having read a fair amount
:> of the writings of RSRH.

: One can decide whether TIDE is or is not Horaas Shaah without reading
: a fair amount of RSRH's writings by knowing lots and lots of Shas,
: Rishonim, Acharonim, Poskim, Baalei Mussar and Baalei Machshavah. I
: daresay that both RSRH and RBBL were well qualified in that regard,
: and their disagreement (if, indeed, RSRH did not mean TIDE as HS)
: is a manifestation of Shivim Panim, rather than, CV, RBBL's implied
: ignorance/carelessness.

The difference between what I said and RYL's follow up is that I wasn't
questioning the eilu va'eilu, and RBBL's ability to hit the same sources
and reach his own conclusion. However, RBBL goes one step beyond --
he attributes the notion of hora'as sha'ah to RSRH himself -- that R'
Hirsch could only have meant TIDE as a hora'as sha'ah.

I agree with your critique of RYL's post, but do not think it's sufficient
to explain RBBL -- which is why I went with the theory that it was
probably due to little of RSRH's work being available at the time to
someone who didn't know German.

It's impossible to read very far in Hirsch and conclude that he was
describing anything but an ideal. (An easy citation is Letter #16
(of the 19), since it's entitled "Emancipation". Another easy one is
his commentary on NOach's berakhah "Yaft E-lokim leYefes". But really,
it's all over his works.) RSRH even goes so far as to call the lack of
TIDE until then a product of the abysmal limitations imposed on us as
part of ghettoization, and that now we have the freedom to be full Jews!

It was only this assumption about RSRH's position that I blamed on
ignorance.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It's never too late
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http://www.aishdas.org   you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507      		- George Elliot