[Avodah] R Tzadok-TSBP

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 9:45pm IDT, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Regarding post-modernism, as exemplified in Shapiro, Wyschogrod, etc.
: my mind is still not entirely made up...

There are times you come across as reaching these corner-pocket positions
because you insist on standing with those on the outside looking in.

My apologies for putting that harshly, I just don't know how else to
say it and the topic is a recurring theme in your posts. Such as your
recent accepance of a viewpoint on RSRH in an article you saw R' Breuer
prove as otherwise flawed. And yet, RMBreuer, Dayan Grunfeld, R' Elias,
IOW, people from across the Breuer's community (TiDE to yeshivish) see
the Zoharic roots of RSRH's work. And his description of RSRH's notion
of the goal of mitzvos ignores the entire thesis built in the essays in
CW VII, titled "Mentch-Yisroel".

I repeat my comment about objectivity and talmud Torah. The academic is
trying to get to truth by staying objective and not allowing negios to
cloud his judgment. Talmud Torah is about internalizing the Torah, not to
eliminate bias, but to induce a bias that matches that of the material
learnt. For this reason, academic study is inherently less valuable
at obtaining the nature of Torah or halakhah. Even when conducted by
an O Jew, there is a difference between academic analysis and talmud
Torah. (You should hear R' Dr Aharon Rakeffet on this; being a RY who
also has a PhD in Judaic Studies, it is a topic he thought about long
and hard.)

For example, what difference does it make what Shapiro or Wyschogrod
think of post-modernism compared to the people actually doing halakhah?
Did you ever hear Rav Ovadiah say that he's deconstructing a text?

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:12pm IDT, Michael Makovi quoted someone
(whose opinion I'm about to attack, so I'm leaving off his name):
: What I mean to bring out from this is that, in concert with the
: post-moderns, to us, the word -- and therefore the interpretation -- is
: everything. And this it turns out is a very powerful mechanism to
: adaptation....
: I am saying that we are permitted to reinterpret chazal as time
: progresses and as the people around us begin to conform to the morals
: they have gleaned from our Torah. I don't think this is heresy -- I think
: this is what we have been doing all along.

I think this is explicitly C. It's such a poweful mechanism for
adaptation, it's Mordechai Kaplan's transvaluation. Olam haBa is something
that can be experienced in the here and now, godliness is something we
feel most when interacting with other people, and thus preparing in the
prozdor so that one may be neheneh miziv hashechinah in OhB becomes a
bein adam lachaveiro imparative. I actually heard a C Rabbi lecture this.
Mesilas Yesharim stripped of classical Jewish theology (or the Ramchal's
riff on that theme in Derekh Hashem) and replaced with some Levinisian
encounter with the other. And when he was done, there were people in
the audience who were nodding as though he really captured the Ramchal
for them!

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 06:33pm IDT, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Professor Marc Shapiro, in "The Brisker Method Reconsidered"
: (Tradition 31:3, Spring 1997), writes,
: The story of the "oven of Aknai" (Bava Metsia 59b) teaches that as far
: as Torah interpretations are concerned, original intent is not the
: decisive factor. It is the conclusion of the sages which is central.
: Even when God Himself reveals His intention, we do not listen to Him,
: for it is God's will that after the  Torah was given, it be explained
: through human intellect.

And yet that's not what any of the rishonim found in it. Nor the Maharal
or R' Tzadoq.

Eilu va'eilu divrei E-lokim chaim can well mean that both opinions were
part of original Intent. The question is the authority to choose between
valid shitos, not intent.

: Professor Shapiro's article is largely concerned with the fact that
: even though the Brisker method fails to explain what the historical
: Rambam actually intended, the Brisker method nevertheless succeeds in
: creating hiddushim that are authentic in their own right...

Given that the halachic process was given by the RBSO to allow us to
produce a lifestyle that both addresses how we and our world evolve
and His unchanging Will for how we should live... then of course the
conclusions reached using the process will contain more than the
author realizes.

As a mashal... The Michelson Morley experiment proved the reality of
Fitzgerald-Lorentz Contraction. As velocity increases, space shrinks,
time stretches out, mass increases, with consequent effects on how
velocities add, the nature of momentum and energy, etc...

Einstein took this and other formula and explained it using a sevara
called spacetime. Did Lorentz think of his contraction in terms of
spacetime? No. He was just trying to come up with a formula that fit
the data. But inherent in that formula were implications he didn't
notice.

Why? Because physics describes something real that the Borei put
together with a clean logic. Different descriptions of the same
phenomenon will fit together even better than anyone notices.

And similarly WRT Torah. Lomdus works because it's not analyzing the
human constructions of how to model Torah within our limited perspective
(another way of describing pesaq as conceived by the Maharal) but
finding the truth being modeled.

Brisker method thus succeeds not in describing the Rambam, but in coming
up with a bridging principle behind the phenomena the Rambam describes.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:25am EDT, Rich, Joel quoted:
: From a Cross Currents Post:
: Halachists, of course, do not approach text this way. Neither do ninth
: graders with serious gemara background. When they see conflict between
: sources, they generally endeavor to reduce the tension as much as
: possible, sometimes by successfully harmonizing sources, and where that
: is impossible, reducing the intellectual distance between the opposing
: viewpoints as much as possible.

I think this is only part of it, and certainly not as common a result
in Brisk. How can you make chaqiros if you're trying to unify?

As I said, I think the central problem is that the academic is looking
at extraneous issues like ths history of ideas. And the ideas evolve
as ideas, with no regard to how the rules of pesaq work and how people
using them would evolve ideas differently than people who aren't. (In
principle that could be done without engaging in the system yourself
while studying those who are and the results of their work. In practice,
I don't find that happening.)

Talmud Torah is seeking G-d within the text. That might tend to
unification, as it means looking for the common theme that is the Ratzon
Hashem, rather than focusing on its outward manifestations.

To close with a variant of the theme, a case where I believe RMM
conflated an academic study of the history of a halakhah with actual
halachic study...

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 1:24pm IDT, Michael Makovi wrote:
: It is for this reason that Rabbi Angel, following Rabbi Hayim David
: Halevi. said that while one may be as personally strict as he desires,
: he must nevertheless respect the lenient opinions. If one wants to be
: strict, that is his prerogative. But others have the full right to
: follow Rabbi Weinberg, Rabbi Hoffmann, Rabbi Uziel, Rabbi Moshe
: haCohen and Rabbi Raphael Aaron ben Shimon, etc. No one today has any
: right to declare these opinions invalid; he may choose them to eschew
: them himself, but does he have a right to deny others use of these
: shitot? (We might make a parallel to Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai on
: mamzerut, but this example would prove the opposite of what I'm trying
: to prove. I'll admit this. Tzarich iyun. I'll admit that I am very
: troubled for what this precedent of Beit Hillel/Shammai would mean for
: the minority view of giyur today.)

However, it doesn't work once the minority position was relegated to
history. At the end of everything, halakhah keBeis Hillel, because they
had the majority. By the time the mishnah was compiled, following Beis
Shammai wouldn't have been judaism any more.

I am sorry you are troubled, but that doesn't make your position any
more correct. The trouble you are feeling I'm afraid is a symptom of
getting a very blatant statement that your picture doesn't fit how
halakhah is done.

The other acharonim's opinions on giyur can actually be gone, closed
options, and yes, declared invalid except possibly as a snif lehaqeil
beshe'as hadechaq -- assuming other snifim can be found. You don't have a
"full right to follow" whomever you want. Doubly so on an issue that has
impact ledorei doros far beyond the sho'eil and the meishiv's community
of followers.

The opinion may be "valid" in the sense of a qiyum of Talmud Torah, but
someone relying on them needs to prove that consensus hasn't taken them
off the poseiq's table. *That* needs to be RMAngel's central theme, not
that these neglected pesaqim existed, some of them made by great men
who did not have the fortune of having a major impact on the flow of
halachic development. (And RMM could have noticed that in his need to
tell us who they are.) Compared to a commonly-followed understanding of
the Rambam?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
micha at aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham