[Avodah] Halachah keRabbi Akiva meiChaveiro

[Micha Berger]

There were two schools of midrashei halakhah. Devei R' Yishma'el produced
    - the Mekhilta on Shemos,
    - the Sifrei on Vayiqra (lost),
    - the Sifrei on Bamidbar, and
    - the Mekhilta on Devarim (largely lost).

Devei Rabbi Aqiva:
    - Mekhilta deRashbi on Shemos,
    - Toras Kohanim (a/k/a Sifra) on Vayiqra
    - Sifrei Zuta on Bamidbar, and
    - the Sifrei on Devarim.

Final redaction appears to have been by amoraim.

The traditional publication of the medrashei halakhah includes four books,
mixing the two schools: Mekhilta, Sifra, Sifrei (on Bamidbar) and Sifrei
(on Devarim). In fact, the two Sifrei's often get published as a single
volume, despite the differnce in style that makes their different origin
obvious (once you know to look for it).

Their older contemporary, R' Eliezer, while a talmid of R' Yochanan
ben Zakkai and thus of BH, went over the the Shammuti side, of the last
holdouts. So just as that machloqes ended, the tannaim again split into
two schools.

Meanwhile, R' Aqiva started work on this new idea -- organizing quotable
halakhah by topic rather than following the chumash. His talmid, R'
Meir composed many of them, and finally Rebbe finished the project.
So that the acceptance of the mishnah means that R' Aqiva's beis medrash
"won" over devei RY, the way BH won out over Beis Shammai.

The rule in Eruvin 46b is "R' Yaaqov veR' Zeriqa amru: halakhah keR'
Aqiva mechaveiro."

Meaning, by our accepting the mishnah as authoritative, we sided with
R' Aqiva's tilin tilin shel halakhos off each qotz, each "es" and not
strictly necessary word, over R' Yishma'el's dibera Torah belashon
benei adam.

We see this in Rashi as well, as recently pointed out by Dr. Avigail Rock
in a Gush mailing available at
<http://vbm-torah.org/archive/parshanut/05parshanut.htm>. 
Rn Rock lists what she considers 4 distinct reasons Rashi would have for
choosing to quote a medrash. The second is lo diberah haTorah belashon
benei adam. And so, when the pasuq (Bereishis 24:10) says that Avraham's
eved took "10 gemalim migemalei adonav", Rashi quotes Bereishis Rabba
that "gemalei adonav" has special meaning, they are unique camels,
they are muzzled. (There are other examples.)

The Torah is given omnisignificance, rather than assuming there are
throwaway words in the way a person would write.

R' Yishma'el's diberah Torah belashon benei adam is not the same as the
Rambam's, even though the Rambam borrows the turn of phrase. The Rambam
uses it to explain the use of anthropomorphic idiom. That doesn't rob
the Torah of omnisiginificance the way R Yishmael dismissed the notion
of darshening "es"; "yad Hashem" is still important.

To touch on an open discussion.... The Torah could have made the same
point as RnCL believes it is making about the scope of the mabul without
the repeated use of "kol". It would mean the same thing to Noach or the
dor hamidbar whether the words were "al penei haaretz" or "al penei kol
haaretz", "umachisi es hayequm" or "es kol hayequm", "vayechasu heharim"
or "kol heharim", "vayigva basar" or "kol basar", etc...

Since R' Aqiva's approach to parshanus won the day, we would need to
know why Hashem repeatedly through in the word "all" when He meant "all
that you know about", rather than "all, even what you don't yet know
about" or "all, even those landmasses you know you are ignorant of but
are out there" (people knew there would be future discoveries of some
sort).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are great, and our foibles are great,
micha at aishdas.org        and therefore our troubles are great --
http://www.aishdas.org   but our consolations will also be great.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Rabbi AY Kook