[Avodah] Ikkarim redux

[Meir Shinnar]

On Apr 1, 2007, at 8:20 AM, avodah-request at lists.aishdas.org wrote:

>
> RMS wrote in part:
>
> the  incorporation of piyutim into the siddur was never  a halachic
> process  - it was far more minhag..
>
> However, you conflate two  separate issues.  Do the 13 ikkarim
> summarize in some sense  important Jewish ideas - yes.  Saying them in
> yigdal is a way  of stating them.  Does that mean that they have
> halachic  status, that not believing them  has halachic consequences?
> That is quite a leap - and would need much further proof.....
>
> Do  the ideas of any piyut incorporated into a standard siddur or
> machzor now have legal status that rejecting them is now  problematic
>
RSB
>
> If the above is true, please explain Ramban's ruling that the  
> recitation of
> Krias Shma is a rabbinic mitzvah while the recitation of Emes  
> vYatziv is a
> Torah  mitzvah. Please explain the Nussach HaBrachos of any Birkas  
> HaMitzvah or
> the  Mussaf of any YT, especially RH and YK. Malchuyos, Zicronos  
> and Shofaros
> are  hardly just "ideas or any piyut incorporated into a standard  
> Siddur or
> Machzor."  They represent statements of faith.


RSB, IMHO, mixes up several different issues - the ability of hazal  
to be metaken tefillot, the status of the text of the tefilla (as  
distinct from the idea of the tefilla)and how fixed it is (as per  
other threads re nusach bavel and eretz yisrael) and the status of  
piyutim.  Now, even if one argues that being fixed by hazal gives it  
a status, piyutim don't have that status  Given the fact of who wrote  
them and that they were accepted into the siddur/machzor means that  
the ideas should be taken with some seriousness (although with the  
caveat that the position of rav hai gaon about aggadic statements of  
hazal applies with far greater force to piyutim) - but viewing them  
as binding statements of faith?? somehow, I don't think that, say, if  
i disagree that af bri utat shem sar hamatar that I am violating  
principles of faith....and the ideas of piyutim, even widely accepted  
piyutim, have generated much controversy over the years....(eg, even  
forgetting the fifth ikkar issue, the standard ashkenazi avodah is  
viewed as problematic by many...)

However, his position is represetative of a certan maximalist school  
- that views everything within the mesora as inviolate and not  
subject to questioning - but ignoring the fact that the mesora itself  
views that much is subject to questioning - and therefore this view  
is itself against the mesora...

Meir Shinnar

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