[Avodah] ikkarim redux

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, February 28, 2007 11:38 am, R Meir Shinnar wrote:
:> Not at all. I'm staying the ikkarim are used in pesaq of what to do lemaaseh.
:> Who can handle my wine. Which converts should I accept. Who must I just
:> lekaf zechus.

: Being used and should be used are two separate issues.  Again, this
: dramatically changes the notion of ikkarim. Another post of mine addresses
: how much they are actually used.

As I have mentioned a few times on Areivim, I have been listening lately to R'
Rakkefet's history shiurim (I think that label is the most apt) while
commuting.

I can't tell if RAR personally agrees with you, that we need to widen our
definition of normative, or me, that we need to widen our definition of O to
include the non-normative. But in any case, he tells the following
(<http://tinyurl.com/2o2wwc>, 45 min in).

As an outline, I think he mentions 3 positions: shemiras Shabbos, 13 ikkarim
and Taryag mitzvos.

YU had a symposium about the Hitqatnut from Azza, and RHSchachter responded to
that symposium, and in turn RAR got a copy of a student's summary. RHS said
that it has to be the will of the people of Am Yisrael in EY, and it must be
put up to a plebiscite. Whether or not you agree with what RHS said so far,
how does he define "Am Yisrael"? Someone who agrees with the 13 ikkarim.

RAR personally would use shemiras Shabbos, not the 13 ikkarim. But he opens
the whole topic by showing how the ikkarim are implied in Shabbos and qiddush.

He feels that RHS is responding to RMShapiro's book. That ironically, the book
made the ikkarim central by causing a counter-reformation. I don't know... The
whole point of the book is that they were taken for granted already. (Not to
mention my disbelief that RHS's would state as halakhah something that
impacted by personal history. It smacks of historical school to my ear.)

RAR then continues by quoting the AhS's citation of opposition by the
mequbalim to putting Yigdal in the siddur. But the the problem the AhS gives
is not that it's too narrow of a criterion, but too wide. All Taryag mitzvos
are indispensable.

:> I am saying that some loose form of them are de facto used in pesaq. Not
:> that that makes them true or false. But we can't say the ikkarim are open to
:> debate when we rely on them as "halachic truth".

: Part of the reason that they are used is precisely the perception that they
: are universally accepted - and therefore, the precedents  that Marc Schapiro
: brings means that any psak that did not take these into account is of less
: value - and those of us who know the precedents can therefore rule
: differently....

But they did! You open the Rambam, the Raavad is right there, defending those
who assign a bodily form to the Creator.

:> I would also argue that this was the Rambam's intent, as he includes them in
:> Hilkhos Teshuvah in defining terms he then uses throughout Mishneh Torah
:> in these ways. But that's secondary, since I'm talking about pesaq today,
:> not the Rambam's intent.

: Yes, the rambam would have had no problem classifying many gdole yisrael as
: kofrim - but most of us do..

How is this in response to what I wrote? I am talking about what we hold
lehalakhah today, you're talking about people who lived during the days of the
rishonim. I tell you what... If I find a bottle of wine that was handled by R'
Moshe ben Chasdai of Taku, we'll argue then if the pesaq would hold
retroactively.

You're accusing me of condemning R' Yosef haGelili for eating his chicken with
cheese.

...
: But you can't have it two ways - if all those who don't hold by a particular
: ideology are kofrim - there isn't a home for them.

This is an Areivim issue. If I had more to say than the observation that I
miss how the seifa follows from the reisha, I would reply there.

: Problem of pesaq contradicting metziut normally only applies to statements
: of chazal - do we really apply it to shitot rishonim and  achronim??? If a
: rishon makes a claim about metziut which we now know to be false, we don't
: treat it the same way as a ma'amar chazal...)

Nu, so that in itself would be the resolution of what to do if one of the
Rambam's 13 were to be proven false. Ani maamin be'emunah sheleimah that's not
going to happen.

:> OTOH, he also quotes this list's membership agreement, and while I'm
:> neither as bright as him nor as educated in the subject, I am well aware
:> that the ikkarim enjoy an acceptance today that they hadn't in the past.

: yes, as a sociological statement they enjoy an acceptance...

YOu say "yes" and then miscast what I said. I'm talking about pesaq.
Halachically speaking, they enjoy an acceptance. It's what most poseqim rely
upon.

Your defense seems to be that these poseqim are simply ignorant of the history
of Jewish philosophy, and therefore that acceptance doesn't have halachic
weight. If I understand correctly, there is no point to discuss that issue
further.

However, do you have any support for that statement? As I mentioned before,
one of the ikkarim is shown to be a machloqes on the standard tzuras hadaf
alongside the Rambam. And while it's easy to point at those trying to continue
Vilozhin and Brisk and talk about how they never study machashavah. But they
aren't the sum total of contemporary poseqim.

:> But it isn't an ikkar. The flipside of accepting the ikkarim as defining
:> which of my peers I'm to treat one way or the other is that it sets a
:> maximum as well as a minimum.

: You might - but others view them as the minimum.  Once one is willing to ban
: positions accepted by many, there is no reason to limit it to the ikkarim..

First, how is that a halchic argument? Second, who are the "many"? I would bet
that RMShapiro himself believes the loose version of the ikkarim I am speaking
of. He denies their being necessary for his self-identification as O, I heard
nothing about his denying their truth.

:> Besides, we can learn from the fact that the gemara still quotes Rav
:> Hillel while telling us his statement requires kaparah that one is
:> supposed to learn these rejected opinions, just like any other. Perhaps
:> this is a proof to the Ra'avad.

: This is the radbaz's proof text

I miss how this helps your position. The Radvaz is saying that someone can
hold a non-normative position and yet still not be a kofeir. It doesn't widen
the definition of normative. It means that I am still supposed to study the
opinions of rishonim we today not only reject (the particular position on this
one subject) as false, but reject as normative. By divorcing the anyone who
reached an answer through honest derishah vechaqirah from the label "kofeir",
it removed any possibility of proving a topic as gray area by citing
authorities from the past. They too wouldn't be koferim even if their
resulting idea is one we now hold would be one of the criteria for qualifying
someone as a kofeir. Seems to answer your question, not strengthen it.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter