[Avodah] More on Mitzvos and Iyun

[Micha Berger]

On Mon,  2 Apr 2007 10:53:27 +0300 (IDT), "Rt Shoshana L. Boublil" <toramada at bezeqint.net> wrote:
>>How is it of /practical/ value even to a baqi? Lomdus is Torah lishmah,
>>knowledge for the sake of knowing Retzon haBorei. It has no applicability,

> Okay, I'm having trouble here with the definitions. Perhaps
> you could assist me:

> Baqi - learning broadly and not deeply (?)

That's beqi'us. A baqi is someone who has the breadth of knowledge.

A baqi's lomdus is of higher quality, as it is an analysis that
reflects more of the data. I am much more likely to make a fundamental
error in my lomdus than many people on list because of my lack of
beqi'us. And we see this all the time -- I come up with something that
sounds so logical (to me at least) and one post in reply (or off-list
email from REMT) takes it all down.

...
> Or is Lomdus not in fact to know Retzon HaBorei but rather
> it's a tool for sharpening the person's intellect, devoid of
> contact with reality (similar to the saying that learning
> Math doesn't make a person a triangle)?

As for sharpening one's mind... That is a major point of learning,
no? Not just to know, but to learn to think as the Torah guides us
to?

I think it's devoid of halakhah lema'aseh, but not devoid of
reality. Lomdus is the discovery of patterns that explain
data in the gemara. It's science. In fact, when his detractors
called R' Chaim Brisker a "chemist", his followers accepted the
description as a compliment!

Pesaq is more like engineering, the application of science.

In theory, science advances engineering. For the individual, though,
rarely has a good theoretician also been a good engineer. One skill
actually detracts from the other -- being able to see what could be
clouds one's ability to see what is.

And being good at Brisker Torah makes it hard to take sides, to apply
one shitah over the other. Briskers who try to be poseqim (and R' Chaim
didn't, as I already posted) often engage in Brisker chumros, in trying
to be chosheish for both sides, rather than pick one over the other.

Something I do not understand, as the gemara has very insulting words
that would seem to apply to people who behave this way. Unless someone
can explain to me why their words only apply to machloqesei batei
Hillel veShammai.

:-)|,|ii!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
micha at aishdas.org        I do, then I understand." - Confucius
http://www.aishdas.org   "Hearing doesn't compare to seeing." - Mechilta
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "We will do and we will listen." - Israelites