[Avodah] FW: R Tzadok-TSBP

[Samuel Svarc]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Michael Makovi<mikewinddale at gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>.
>
> So I am very uncomfortable with Rabbi Haim's reticent to pasken. I
> have a very one-track mind, and we've seen on these boards previously
> that I am unable to comprehend apologetics or altering the truth in
> favor of expediency; I simply cannot comprehend these, and I even made
> a Freudian slip trying to describe a specific apologeia; I simply
> cannot comprehend these. Similarly, the notion of Talmud study that
> does not lead ultimately to a better understanding of the practical
> halakhah, I simply cannot stomach this notion.

As an outside observer, although not in any sense objective, I think
you are misreading your process. You call things "apologetics" and
such, and have not read the originals. Most of your material is long
quotes from other people whose interpretations you accept for the
conclusions they reach. Nothing to do if those people's thesis is
truth, as you don't know the source material for that, but rather I
repeat their interpretations because their conclusions sound good to
me. Very circular.

> When I'm studying Gemara, for example, I enjoy the Rif, Rambam, and
> Shulhan Arukh a million times more than I enjoy Tosafot. (This is also
> because I dislike casuistry and dialectics. I remember when there was
> a conflict between two sugyot, Tosafot offered several complex
> solutions, while Ra'avad on the Rif simply said that one sugya was the
> ikkar and overrode the other, and that we'd re-girsa the other to
> agree with the first. I am a straight-shooter, and the Ra'avad
> satisfied me far more than the Tosafot did.)

Totally off the mark. The real reason is that to have 'sugyos' in Shas
contradict each other is no evil in your eyes. Tosfos gives the most
straight forward ways to resolve these seeming contradictions, a real
straight shooter. If you would accept the reality, that Shas is a
seamless whole (by and large - we are talking in generalities), you
would have no issue with Tosfos.

> My justification of academic study of Torah is simple: if it is
> objectively true, then surely, it must have an effect on halakhah. If
> it is objectively false, then obviously, it should have no effect,
> since it is false anyway. When people say that academic findings are
> true but are outside the halakhic process, I simply cannot comprehend
> this. I simply cannot comprehend any true knowledge, any true finding,
> that does not have practical ramifications. I realize that this goes
> against the traditional method, but I simply cannot comprehend any
> true finding that is purely theoretical, that is divorced from
> practice. It just doesn't fit in my brain.

The best (and by this I mean, the most factual) explanation as to the
irrelevance of academic studies to Torah, is the following. R' Boruch
Ber said about a professor, "He knows what Abbaye ate, where he lived,
etc. I know what Abbaye said." Academic studies of Torah share the
same irredeemable flaw, they lack the real knowledge, the internal
knowledge of what is really being said. Living today are people who
have heard Torah directly from people who heard directly from people
who heard directly from R' Chaim Brisker. Anyone who analyzes Brisker
Torah without this knowledge is fooling himself and anyone who listens
to him. Extrapolate from this to academic studies that cut themselves
off from Torah as a whole (not only Brisker Torah) and attempt to
analyze Shas.

As someone who has read RSRH, you could not have failed to hear his
clarion call, "Learn Torah based on itself!" It is a wise call to
heed.

KT,
MSS