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

[David Riceman]

Micha Berger wrote:
> <me>
> : This isn't behirah.  See MDM, in the section I cited, #1 (pp. 230-231).  
> : Clarity leads to inevitability, not to choice.<snip> The 
> : creativity of HM is precisely in understanding a sugya so clearly that 
> : he has no choice about how to explain it or pasken from it.
> <RMB>
> Then RCBrisker was not a halachic man. There was an agunah in Brisk,
> and neither he nor the dayan knew how to pasqen. He asked the dayan to
> write RYESpektor for a pesaq, and that he should telegram back a one word
> answer. RCB was afraid that if he knew the sevara, he could argue both
> sides and reopen the question!
This is a red herring.  One of the consequences of eilu v'eilu is that 
both sides of an argument can be understood as clear and inevitable.  In 
fact it points to another problem with HM (the essay).  We know that HM 
(the person) has to pasken in order to live, but HMTE never discusses 
how HMTP does that; it can't be done by using a priori categories.
> More that someone trying to be living dialectically based creativity in
> which one of the archetypes is HM -- and thus that creativity includes
> halakhah -- needs a certain level of expertise. Not that high, but beyond
> what most balebatim will bother gaining and if gained, will often apply.
>   
But they're capable of attaining it.  If they were brought up in this 
hypothetical community (I'm tempted to call it HMTC) they would believe 
it to be obligatory, and then they would "bother" to attain it.
> Yes, that HM in terms of rebuilding oneself to conform with halakhah's
> a priori categories. But that's not becoming a creative partner with
> G-d in how one deals with life's conflicts, including making halakhah
> into a partnership excercise.
>   
Now you're confusing means with ends.  The "rebuilding oneself to 
conform with halakhah's

a priori categories" is a means to "becoming a creative partner with
G-d in how one deals with life's conflicts
".

> <me>
> : Another critique of HM, irrelevant to this thread, is that the 
> : categories of Torah are not really a priori, v'od hazon lamoded.
>   
That last word was a misprint.  I did not mean to imply that only 
statisticians can become prophets, though see Lech L'cha 15:5, and see 
(an uncensored version of) Rashi Ki Tisa 33:16 s.v. "v'niflinu".
> But I invite you to start another thread about it. I didn't think that
> the a priori nature halakhah's categories was open to question (within
> a Torah-dik worldview).

I'll try to find the time to compose a post.

David Riceman