[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel

[Richard Wolpoe]

On 10/23/07, T613K at aol.com <T613K at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> The area of disagreement is not whether halacha underwent some historical
> development -- the Gemara itself says that it did, when it describes the
> reasons and circumstances under which various derabanans were promulgated.
> Everyone knows that the mitzvos of Chanuka and Purim, for example, were the
> products of certain historical events.
>

Can we make the 5th of Iyyar a holiday like Purim NOWADAYS?
Apparently as quote to me RYBS refused to allow birkas Hallel on 5 Iyyar.
As per Rabbeinu Tam it would be OK  to do so AISI.

[fwiw persoanlly I treated 5 Iyyar like lag ba'omer]


The area of disagreement concerns the question of whether the entire corpus
> of halacha is entirely man-made, subjective and random.  Right-wingers would
> say that only /allowable/ developments occurred over time, and that there is
> a system of rules under which not all developments are allowable.
>
> Even when two poskim disagree on a given psak, they do not choose from an
> infinite array of subjectively chosen possibilities when they arrive at
> their respective decisions, but from an allowable range which is distinctly
> finite and bound by known rules.
>

agreed there are limitations see below

You can play a hundred games of chess, according to the rules of chess,
>

Are the rules themselves fixed? - see below

and from the same initial setup you can arrive at a hundred different final
> chessboard arrangements, but all of them will be derivable from the same
> rules.  A chess player can glance at the final chessboard and tell you
> instantly that in one case, the final board was not a possible outcome of
> the rules of chess and that his three-year-old must have put pieces on the
> board after the game was over.  (The three-year-old in my analogy is a
> Reform or Conservative rabbi who isn't happy with the allowable range of
> chess moves and doesn't really care how he gets to the final board as long
> as he likes the way it looks.)
>

Ture R & C rabbis hae a deinite agenda. Many Argue that ther are many  O
rabbis who also decide the issue BEFORE looking up the sources!

*--Toby Katz
> =============*
>

OK let's concede teh following
GIVEN: Halacha can Evolve

Question: Can the RULES for making Halachah evolve?.

Illustration:
Given the Talmud's authority in Halacha cannot be over-ruled. [we can
quibble about this but let's leave it alone arguendo]

Question:

   1. Can OTHER texts be simlarly authorized e.g. the Shulchan Aruch?
   2. Can other texts be included - e.g. Mishna Brrurau
   3. Can we SUBTRACT texts? e.g. the ein mihspat ner Mitzva uincludes
   the Semag as 1 of the big 4. Who learns Semag anymore?
   4. Or is it NEVER about texts per se?

I think the point about the chess match is that the rules themselves are not
100% stable.
When you had a Sanhedrin, IT was the stabilizing uniifying force.

I hve bee n on a quest for about 10-20 years to find a definitve set of
rules for making Halachah. Not only have I falied to find agreemnt, I cannot
find a single text taht says this is how it is SUPPOSEd to work.  yaakov
Katz and Menachem elon have outlined how it HAS worked. But I know of no
defeinitve mongraph on HOW TO MAKE HALACHAH


And think about this:
Can you ever over-rule a Rabbi's pesak based upon some meta-rule of Halacha
that was not respected?  IOW rabbis are not only making pesak on an issue,
they are also defacto ruling on HOW to make pesak!

Iillustration: When I made any decisiosn regarding to shul minhaggim or
nusach, I would search for a precedent and I would ONLY consult with
rabbonim who were familiar with the German Minhag.

[See NishmaBlog's survey on a related matter]


Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
Please Visit:
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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