[Avodah] New King

[Kelmar, Michael J.]

R' Mikha'el Makovi:
"I can't learn anything from the Torah if
the Torah to me is a haze of conflicting shitot that I hold nothing
regarding them."


Maybe what you are saying is similar to what has been expressed as a
criticism of religious liberals:  "If anything can be true, than nothing
is true."

However, in Torah we have to concept of Eilu v'Eilu.  So when we
conclude, even only for ourselves, that one p'shat is THE correct one,
we cut off our ability to see the emes of the other p'shat.  That is
potentially dangerous, given our very limited understanding, and the
very great stature of Chazal, Rishonim etc.  We are speaking of the
Avos, of Yosef, of a period when Hashem's Hashgacha was such that there
were radical, open nissim.  So it would seem difficult to apply our
understanding of how kings normally behave, or our understanding of
human psychology normally operates.  Our basis of comparison may be
meaningful or it may be entirely meaningless.

There are places where later m'forshim show that both p'shatim in a
machlokes are correct (al pi p'shuto), even though it would seem that it
was a choice of "either or".  

Yes, as a few folks, reminded me off list, there are plenty of m'forshim
that choose one p'shat over another, or say p'shatim that contradict
Chazal.  But we need to use due caution when applying this idea.