[Avodah] HaRav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik on Saying Hallel on Yom Ha’Atzma’ut

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 05:13:43PM +0000, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: Yes if one sticks to history and sources one realizes this is senseless
: HOwever if one deconstructs based upon affilation to retrofit a
: revisionist POV back into time, then what's the probem?

There are other possibilities between the classical academics pursuit of
what was, as determined as clean-slate as possible, and the
deconstruction's pursuit of what the text says to me.

In particular, TSBP is ba'al peh, an oral tradition. It is /supposed/ to
evolve. Codification is only "eis laasos Lashem heifeiru Sorasekha".

Mesorah is a living tradition of a development of ideas. The Oral
Torah is oral, a dialog across the generations. If we see a quote in
the gemara from Rav Yochanan, we might be curious about the historical
intent of Rav Yochanan. But in terms of Torah, important to us than
what R' Yochanan's original intent is what R' Ashi thought that
intent was, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes
of what the Rosh and the Rambam understood R' Ashi's meaning to be,
which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of the Shaagas
Aryeh and R' Chaim Brisker. That is the true meaning, in terms of
Torah, of Rav Yoachanan's statement. (Quoted from my blog entry at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/08/postmodernism-and-mesorah.shtml>.)

But your friend is making a historical claim, not a halachic one. He's
not playing the TSBP game, but denying a historical event.


Second, even a deconstructionist can't make claims by denying the
existance of some of the texts before him. That's just dishonesty.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 22nd day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
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