[Avodah] R Tzadok-TSBP

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 7:02pm IDT, Michael Makovi wrote:
: Professor Shapiro, ibid., does note at length that Rabbi Haim
: Soloveitchik was reticent to pasken, directing people to the dayan of
: Volozhin for practical questions. Rabbi Haim was sure that his
: hiddushim were true and correct, but he couldn't bring himself to
: practically rule that way, against the SA in favor of a novel ruling
: of the Rambam's or a novel reading of the Gemara. Faced with the
: conflict, he simply chose not to pasken anything.

This is 180deg off from the evidence.

There was once an agunah question that arose in Brisk, a question arose
on a get where the ex-husband already fled the area. R' Chaim asked
R' Simcha Selig Reguer (the dayan) to write out the question to send it
to R' Yichaq Elchanan, and to request from RIES that he telegram back a
one word answer. R' Chaim expressed fear that if RIES gave his sevara,
he would be able to argue both sides, and thus never be happy with the
conclusion. However, if he is simply given the poseiq hador's decision,
he would have no problem.

(See RARR's "The Rav", 6.02, who also points to R' Shelomo Yoseif
Zevin's Ishim veShitot, pp 58-59.)

IOW, it isn't that R' Chaim didn't trust his lomdus enough to pasqen from
it, but that he trusted his lomdus's ability to explain a machloqes so
far that he couldn't see any way to choose one shitah over another.

As I said, 180deg from RMShapiro's conclusion.

...
: 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....

Halakhah isn't the determination of truth, it's the determination,
interpretation and legislation of law. Data is an important factor, but
it's only a factor. And someone can be authoritative as law even if
we would no longer agree with the original motivation.



On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 1:54pm EDT, R David Riceman wrote:
:>Perhaps this is why I'm so interested in the effects of hashkafa on
:>pesika - saving einam yehudim on Shabbat, Rabbis Uziel and Haim David
:>Halevi, etc.

: This puts the cart before the horse.  Psak influences hashkafa rather 
: than hashkafa influencing psak.

This is RSRH's critique of Wissenschaft, that it took theories about
how Judaism ought to be and redefined Judaism to fit the theory. Alchemy
style -- fitting the date to the theory rather than the other way around.

However, it's not entirely one-directional. To continue the mashal,
we assume a well-established theory holds in cases we didn't yet
test. If someone asked me how fast a pebble fell when he dropped it,
I will assume it was roughly moving 9.8 m/sec after the first second,
twice that after the second, etc...

Where the halachic process doesn't give us a clear answer, what do we
do? There is a trend toward "choseish leshitas ha-" or "baal nefesh
yachmir". There are also those who apply the rules of safeiq to this
safeiq in the din.

However, using aggadita / Telzher "fahr vos" lomdus to break the tie is
also very common. (This being my nimshal. We can't get an experimental
answer, so we follow the theory.)

And we even question the "experimental data" when the theory is
sufficiently entrenched. The question is how far that goes. Chassidim
were able to find room for things like clapping and dancing on Shabbos,
not sitting in the Sukkah on SA, etc... The misnagdim considered that
beyond the limits of din, "alchemy" terretory.

However, R' Moshe Soloveitchik sat for havdalah out of a "fahr vos"
sevara that havdalah closes the set initiated in qiddush (which is said
sitting). R' Chaim and the aforementioned notion that Vayekhulu is a
kind of eidus.

(BTW, I forgot to give the punchline that tied that reply to the post.
If Vayekhulu is eidus, and a father-and-son pair can invalidate the
whole kat, then you should be careful not to attend the same Friday
night minyan as any immediate family members.)



On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:07am EDT, R Samuel Svarc wrote:
: 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.

Because of the earlier discussion as to whether the primary distinction
between academic study and talmud Torah is that the former is a quest for
unity or detatchment vs internalization, I was thinking about it further.

I think that someone looking to internalize will perforce end up trying
to unify. Each new datum encountered has to be incorporated into a single
worldview, lifestyle, value system and emotional schema -- in short, me.

We therefore have philosophical reasons to tend toward finding unity
across ideas, and Tosafos-style reconciliation (or Brisk-style finding
the exact point where the common theme reaches diverse variants).



On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:55pm EDT, R Samuel Svarc wrote:
: So, yes, RSRH (and RMF - remember Shira al Hayam, Shiras Devorah,
: etc.) holds that there exists nobility in music (to use but one
: example). But what is the yardstick to measure it with?

Or in poetry. Shirah al haYam was definitely sung, but "shirah" refers
to the lyrics, and can refer to poetry even without a tune, no? In which
case, the nobility could well be in the words, not the music.

...
: Don't lump RSRH with the others. They don't hold his views.

To put it broader: MO traces more from Hildesheimer's than RSRH. And is
doubly true of the Academic Orthodoxy subtype.

RSRH didn't have positive things to say about Wissenschaft even knowing of
the varient followed by R' Dovid Zvi Hoffman, whose first job was teaching
at RSRH's Realschule, and eventually becoming rector at Hildesheimer's.



On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 8:45am EDT, Rich, R Joel wrote:
: I would argue that R' Boruch Ber's statement , if taken at face value,
: is inconsistent with Brisker (and broader) traditional talmud torah.

Brisker derekh is actually newer than frum variants of Wissenschaft.
And, given the Rambam's description in his letters to Luneil of how
to answer questions on his Yad, no less traditional. There are more
precedents for RDZH among the Spharadi rishonim than the mesorah offers
for RCBrisker. Brisk is to my mind more talmud Torah, but I can't argue
it's more traditional.

...
: It wouldn't shock me at all if an academic better understood the local
: conditions (what one ate, where one lived) and how that informed on what
: issues an amora spoke on and how they were dealt with. Of course , that
: doesn't mean we rely on them for psak but I still think their input can
: be of value.

Total tangent, but there is another advantage to knowing the amoraim on
that level. I can't remember who said what until I have some sense of
the people I'm referring to. The way I relate to words requires having
some meaning to attach the word to, so that it's not just a set of
(familiar) sounds.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are where your thoughts are.
micha at aishdas.org                - Ramban, Igeres Hakodesh, Ch. 5
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