[Avodah] ktanai

[Michael Kopinsky]

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Rich, Joel <JRich at sibson.com> wrote:

>  Does anyone have a good explanation why the gemara will quote a machloket
> in the name of amoraim and then immediately say ktannai and quote the same
> machloket word for word in the name of tannaim (e.g melech issue -
> sanhedrin20b)
> KT
> Joel Rich
>
I do not have a good explanation for the times when the exact same machlokes
is cited in the tannaim.

When the machloksim are not identical but rather (potentially) parallel, my
explanation is as follows: (I have not heard this anywhere, but kach nireh
li pashut.)  The main goal of the amoraim was to figure out how to pasken.
When they were presented with two opinions among amoraim, the easiest way to
pasken is to say it's parallel to a machlokes tannaim, where they already
knew klalei psak - Yachid v'rabbim halacha k'rabbim, halacha k'beis hillel,
the halacha is not like Rabbi Meir if someone else disagrees, etc. etc.  The
Gemara will often reject a leima k'tannai (well, actually, if it's a *leima*
k'tannai it will always reject it - otherwise it wouldn't have used the word
leima), saying that no, our dilemma here can not be simply reduced to a
previously known equation, and we must go through and debate each side on
its own merits.

KT,
Michael
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080604/96edd5c5/attachment-0002.htm>