[Avodah] FW: R Tzadok-TSBP

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 09:53:18AM -0400, R' Eliyahu Gerstl wrote:
: I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to read RMB's beautiful
: description of the development of our knowledge of Halacha and his analogies 
: to developments in our knowledge of Physics.

I realized during an off-list conversation that my including physics
details may have obscured my point for people who aren't interested
in physics. So, let me state it a different way.

There are three things: the physics experiment (Michelson Morley), the
formula that unifies the data (Lorentz), and the theory that further
explains the formula (Einstein). Halakhah, gemara and rishonim, lomdus.

The mashal doesn't work 100% (but every mashal has limits), since the
authority of a poseiq isn't only to discover what's there, but also to
define which of the valid shitos ought to be followed. They aren't just
"eidei birur", they have a role in qiyum.

Lomdus thus describes the logic inherent in someone's description of a
bit of Torah, and can do so in ways the person who made the description
never realized. Because it's an analysis of the Torah, not the rishon's
thought patterns.

Now I'm not insisting this kind of reasoning was actually what RYYW
actually meant. I think it's the straightforward interpreation of saying
that Brisker Torah are chiddushei Torah even when the Rambam thought
the explanation lay elswhere, but that's personal taste for what's the
most straightforward.

What's more significant in what I wrote is that alternate explanations
to deconstructionism exist. We have no other indication in the mesorah
that gives credance to the approach. It's therefore the extraordinary
claim, and bears a heavy burden of proof. Giving me one explanation of
a paragraph in the Seridei Eish doesn't really prove the point.

Especially after I've seen what deconstructionism has done in the hands
of the Reconstructionist (sorry, I couldn't refrain from the wordplay),
I find it very hard to believe an O poseiq would consider it a worthwhile
part of the toolset.

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 08:02:52PM +0300, Michael Makovi wrote:
: In other words, just as Rabbi Akiva brought the Oral Law into
: actuality from its being potential in the Written Law, so too the
: Amoraim did to the Mishnah, the Rishonim to the Amoraim, and the
: Aharonim to the Rishonim. Each generation brings potentiality to
: acutality, koah to po'al. Some sort of post-modernism is clearly
: demanded.


How do you get that? R' Aqiva made the experiments, Ravina and R'
Ashi found the unifying formulas, etc.. Bringing koach to po'al
isn't post-modern, it's a simple description of "midgets atop giants"
accumulating knowledge.

(BTW, I recall someone on list mentioned that that phrase is offensive to
little people. I spent time trying to remember a rephrasing that didn't
offend, but gave up. "Little people atop giants" wasn't it, and wouldn't
clearly let the reader know which metaphor I meant. My apologies to the
list member whose feelings were hurt, and hope that this explanation
mitigates that.

(Also, a note to the other regular posters about how diverse our list
of readers is. You really can't assume much about what would or wouldn't
give personal offence, because we have no idea what everyone is battling
in their lives.)


Bask to REG's post:
: However, please see Rav Moshe's Teshuva in Igrot Moshe[1], 
: Yoreh Deah 1, No. 101, that I submit provides the best 
: THEORETICAL understanding.

: Thus we are told that in rare cases of a great posek having "raayyot nechonot"
: (and such certainly would not include the use of sociology of knowledge but
: true halachic raayot) the opinion of the posek (which 
: might include such a minority opinion) may yet
: become more than merely a snif lehakeil. 
: Rav Moshe brings the caveat that such must not be against the SA given
: the accepted status of the SA. (See similarly SA:CM25)  

I don't see this as an exception. What I said was that it's possible
for a minority opinion to be rejected to the point of being closed. RMF
says this WRT those opinions rejected by the SA (and I assume the Rama,
what about other nosei keilim).

I said that RMAngel's task, as I see it, is to show how the criterion for
considering a question closed has not been met. Bringing up precedents
from posqim, no matter how chashuv, who lack the impact on the flow of
halakhah of those who hold the majority, doesn't do it. That would be
of interest to the historian, but it doesn't prove that the idea should
be of greater significance to the contemporary poseiq.

In this case, BTW, it is a pesaq in geirus that differs from that of
the SA and the nosei keilim on the standard page. Nor does RMA have
raayos nichochos; rather he says that since the pesaq once existed, we
can't fault those who follow it. But the conclusion isn't a necessary
consequence of the premise.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke