[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos/Rabbi shopping

[Chana Luntz]

Erev Shabbas I wrote:

> RAF write:
> 
> > R'n CL wrote:
> > > I thought that, to the contrary, I suggested
> > > that for some people, a particular question may be so important to
> > > them that it shapes their whole hashkafic outlook on life, 
> > and hence
> > > they would indeed categorically exclude choosing someone
> > based on the
> > > particular desired answer to a particular question.
> > 
> > Well, I do have an issue with that. Our actions should flow
> > forth from our principles, don't you think so?
> 
> While this sounds like some sort of platonic ideal - we sit 
> an philosophise and develop principles and then act in 
> accordance with them, I don't think this is how things work 
> for many people (maybe it works that way for the people of 
> the Rambam's ideal).  If you don't want to hold by the idea 
> that most people are therefore a write-off (in which case, I 
> suspect, whatever you posken for them probably doesn't 
> matter), then maybe you need to legitimise the actual way 
> people end up drawing hashkafic conclusions, which would seem 
> to be a bit more bottom up than that.

I was groping on Erev Shabbas as to how to say what it is that I want to
say, and on Shabbas it occurred to me how perhaps I could say it better,
so here goes:

In Yevamos 116b the gemora brings a mayse shehaya about a woman whose
husband was bitten by a snake when he went out to the wheat harvest, and
she came and testified to beis din that her husband had died, and they
went and checked it out and indeed he had died, and at that point they
legislated that a woman is believed if she comes to beis din and says
her husband has died to allow her to remarry.  And the Mishna there
brings a machlokus between Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai regarding
whether or not they believe a woman just in a case similar to the mase
shehaya or not - for example if the woman and her husband went to
midinas hayam and she testified about his death there, with Hillel
saying no it must be similar to the mase shehaya and Beis Shamai saying
not necessarily, and Beis Hillel eventually retracted and agreed to the
position of Beis Shamai.

Now one of the things about this case that fascinates me is that we know
nothing about this woman except that she changed the course of Jewish
history (think of the number of marriages and children that have
subsequently been permitted because of what happened to this woman).
Was she a particularly pious woman?  Was she a particularly non pious
woman?  Was she a completely average woman (and how was that
determined)?

But on a deeper level what this case illustrates (and I could have
brought you many other examples) is that Chazal tended not to work from
the platonic ideal and apply downwards, but tended to work from
individual cases and work upwards.  Even where they do bring a general
principle "v'zeh haklal" is it almost invariably preceeded by a list of
specifics, and I don't think that is an accident.  

Now you responded to a couple of situations I brought by referring to
them as "human interest cases" -and somehow that designation struck me
as not quite the right way to think about them.  Or rather, it struck me
as perhaps flowing from what I am tempted to describe as a Western based
on Greek method of thinking - where we start with our principles and
work downwards - hence my reference to Platonic ideal, with the
philosopher kings in the back of my mind.

But I don't think Chazal thought like that.   Rather, they seem to start
from the case, and then have a machlokus about the principle behind it
(eg is it because the woman will investigate herself to make sure that
she does not suffer the penalties if the husband does show up etc etc) -
it is a very bottom up way of doing things - starting on earth with real
cases and climbing to the heavens, rather than starting in heaven with
pure ideals and applying them to the earth and real cases.  I don't know
how to express it any better than this, as it is a hard concept to
articulate - but it is why it felt to me that there is something not
quite right about your statement that "Our actions should flow forth
from our principles" - albeit that I am finding it hard to explain
exactly why.  Hopefully this may make it a bit clearer.  

> > Arie Folger

Shavuah tov

Chana