[Avodah] avot (mishna? as binding??)

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 06:07:44PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: R' Micha Berger wrote:
: > ... pirqei avos are avos in the sense of avos malakhah. (The
: > Bartenura's translation, not mine.) IOW, they aren't rules of
: > behavior, they are values and rules of what you should be which
: > interact with the situations you face to produce those rules of
: > behavior codified in the other mesechtos -- as well as telling
: > you which way you're pulled when acting lifnim mishuras hadin.

: > So, aspiring for its goals is obligatory, but the specific
: > behaviors used to exemplify those goals may not be obligatory
: > in every situation and context.

: Your conclusion (that "the specific behaviors ... may not be
: obligatory") might be correct, but I don't see how you get there from
: your starting point.

E.g. see the Ramban on "hayashar vehatov" (Devarim 6:18). "Lefi she'i
efshar lehazkir baTorah kol hanhagos ha'adam im kol shekhenav verei'av".
Hatov vehayashar are avos because the Torah can't possibly codify how
BALC is reflected in all of one's deailing.

On the BALM side, the Ramban's famous "qadeish es atzmekha bema shemutar
lakh" is similar. Not every duty to G-d can be made a black-letter rule,
so HQBH also gave us the av, the basic principle, from which to derive
lifnim mishuras hadin.

: On the contrary, to my ears, the comparison being made by the Bartenura
: is that Pirkei Avos lists broad categories, and that similar things (that
: Toldos of these Avos) are equally important....

I erred, and it's not the Bartenura, it's the Tif'eres Yisrael, in
the name of those qwho cam before him ("kisvu qama'ei"). See
<http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=40276&pgnum=433>.

The notion that these categories are themselves obligation names is
a mistaken parallel you're drawing from my giving another example of
this translation of "av". All I meant was to justify not translating
it as "... of the fathers".

He is saying that the mitzvos are tolados, and these are the avos
(which also "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai"). Still, once we have the av,
we can construct other tolados that are more situationally defined,
along the lines of the Ramban above.

: But the comparison to Avos Melacha does not specify where Pirkei Avos
: falls on that spectrum...

??? Pirqei AVOS are the avos, no?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For those with faith there are no questions.
micha at aishdas.org        For those who lack faith there are no answers.
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