[Avodah] Conflicting Sources

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 08:57:34PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: I thought the purpose of the Torah She-b'al peh was to illuminate the  
: protocol for many things such as T'fillin and Tzitzis.
: Therefore, why would there have been conflicting sources when the main  
: source is from God?

Eilu va'eilu -- He let us decide.

We wrote about this numerous times before at lenth, and I blogged about
it at length. See
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-i.shtml
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-ii.shtml

Just a snippet from part 2, to sum up the particular opinion I found
most to my own taste:
>  My personal inclination is close to the philosophy of the Maharal's.
>  If I can use a variant on Plato's metaphor, we are like people
>  looking at shadows of an object. Since reality can not capture all
>  "three dimensions" of "divrei E-lokim Chaim", we see what looks
>  like conflicting "two dimensional" shadows. Shapes that accurately
>  represent the whole, but only from the direction from which we are
>  shining the light. The process of pesaq is that of deciding how we
>  should grow and develop given where we stand; what are angle ought to
>  be in relation to that 3 dimentional object and therefore what shadow
>  it casts.One can't adopt two conflicting positions, neither
>  leniencies (as would the Conservative movement do) nor stringencies
>  (as per the insufficiently fictional "Chumrah of the Month Club").
>  That would be combining two different angles, to produce a "shadow"
>  the object could never really cast. One is no longer representing the
>  "object", the Word of G-d.

>  True pluralism (within a range of valid positions) seems to be a
>  compelling conclusion from the Gemara (Hagigah 3b) is concerned about
>  the person who will note when "those [Rabbis] prohibit, yet those
>  [authorities] permit [the very same thing]... how can I possibly learn
>  Torah today?" The answer is found in the words of Koheles 12, "Nasnu
>  meiRo'eh echad -- both views were given by the same shepherd."

(References to R' Tzadoq and to how eilu va'eilu places halakhah outside
Goedel's Theorem deleted.)

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
micha at aishdas.org        which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org   again. Fullfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH