[Avodah] Can you build a community around Halakhic Man?

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 01:13:39PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: I enjoyed the post and was with you until the conclusion :-).  As
: actuaries (or at least one) like to say - life is inherently risky.
: The tension you describe imho is "inherent in the briah" (hmm-where did
: I hear that before)...

They may well be. I didn't address the accuracy of RYBS's model. And I'm
using the word "model" advisedly; I think various derakhim are based on
different descriptions of something too big to really understand. Models.

:            Each of us who accepts this approach must seek to navigate
: (to use your description) at our own level of creativity - I have no
: doubt that R'YBS dwarfs me but so what - R' Zushya, echad hamarbeh etc.

My problem is that if harmonious coexistence between these two worlds
depends on my ability to enter with G-d in a creative partnership in
the development of halakhah, the derekh doesn't speak to most people's
experience. The notion of halakhah as creativity is something few
people experience more than a handful of times in their life -- if that.
Instead, halakhah as experienced is more about submission.

For most people, our own level of creativity is worse than nothing.
Few can get good enough at such creativity to have positive results --
this is halakhic man, creativity in the evolution of pesaq. You don't want
half-baked lomdus and people pasqening for themselves from ignorance. And
until you get there? So, the outlook specifies an ideal, but doesn't
specify a path to it for people sufficiently distant from that ideal.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
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