[Avodah] mesorah

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 02:21:53PM -0500, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: Litvishe poskim say you do not change from Nusach  Ashkenaz to Nusach Ari or 
: Sfard, because you should keep your family  mesorah....
: Chassidishe poskim say that you /can/ and maybe even /should/ change from  
: Nusach Ashkenaz to Nusach Sfard or Nusach Ari, because you are rising in  
: madreiga from a lower nusach to a higher nusach, but you should not change
: the  other way because that would be going down to a lower nusach.

: This may apply to a recent thread in which the question was discussed,  could 
: a computer be programmed to just look at all precedents, weigh them up and  
: come up with a psak?  Could a computer be a posek?

: In answer, it appears that you would have to specify in  advance whether you 
: wanted a Litvishe or a chassidishe computer.  

: (Ashkenazi or Sephardi -- same thing)

I wish it did, but this doesn't really prove that pesaq is creative
rather than procedural (an algorithm). Here's one possible way to
account for the difference.

It would mean that when you buy the program, you'll have to adjust the
settings. Move the slider on "importance of keeping historical practice",
then the one on "kabbalistic significance".

A Litvak would be advised to move the first one way above the second,
especially when compared to a chassid.

Alternatively, perhaps even those inputs aren't supposed to exist. In
which case, I have no idea where eilu va'eilu would come from --
one would have to assert that it's a concession to human effort, not a
statement of multiple truth. (Enough meqoros for that, even if the Avodah
chevrah tend toward the other side.) Not surprising, since objectivity
usually means a single truth regardless of perspective. In which case,
you would need to simulate all the pesaqim about how to pasqen, running
through milennia of history since the last beis din hagadol (at least)
to make sure you really have what HQBH gave us, without any human errors.

Tir'u baTov!
-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