[Avodah] Kosher Turkey and Women Rabbis and Mesorah

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2015 at 12:18:24AM -0700, Daniel M. Israel via Avodah wrote:
: I've seen arguments like this one before, and they miss the critical
: difference. How rulings such as permitting turkey, the switch to nusach
: Sephard, or even how Judaism survived without the korbanos, all arose and
: entered the mainstream ...                            but it is clear in
: all these cases that the source was not a group of activists promoting
: a agenda which was primarily driven by some outside value system. This
: makes all the difference.

My own problems are specifically with
(1) the technical issue of changing whose halachic decision-making is
    considered "pesaq",

and, more relevant to RDMI's point:
(2) changing the feel of the synagogue,
(3) the implication that synagogue is more important to Judaism than it
    really is,
(4) the attempt to erase differences (egalitarianism) rather than create
    comparable room for opportunity, and
(5) the seeming willingness implied by 1-3 to accept and adapt halakhah
    to externally derived values rather than spend time assessing whether
    the West is just pointing out values we should already have gotten
    from the Torah.

The Sho'el uMeishiv also accepted an outside value once, and at the time
that I first encountered it in a lunch-and-learn (Jun 2001) I applauded
it. <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol07/v07n058.shtml#04>

> The Sho'el uMeishiv's position that if secular society saw the moral
> obligation to protect an author's creation and publisher's investment, it
> is impossible that the Torah is less moral. He therefore assigns ownership
> of ideas to their creator. And since, in halachah, ownership is eternal
> (barring proactively making a kinyan), he paskened that copyrights
> are lehalachah also eternal.

> Note that he isn't claiming dina dimalchusah. There are grounds for
> that too, and even for turning that dina dimalchusah ownership into a
> halachic eternal ownership. But that's for a discussion of the halachos
> of copyright.

> I just want to note the SuM's assumption, and the importance he assigns
> moral rights identified by the surrounding culture.

But there was a procedual step here -- comparing the outside value and
finding them consistent with the Torah's, but a new expression of ideas
already found in Torah.

I think that if (5) weren't true, I would be comfortable saying eilu
va'eilu about 2-4.

But I think I've gone further discussing one man's opinion, and one man's
self-examination about its roots, than anyone would bothering reading.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow
micha at aishdas.org        man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries
http://www.aishdas.org   about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter