[Avodah] Classical Academia, Deconstruction, and Mesorah

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 03:59:29PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: So Again I ask - is our goal to know the original dvar hashem or to
: follow the "process hashem" ?

On the off chance this question isn't rhetorical:

Lo bashamayim hi.

The whole reason why TSBP is be'al peh.

Hilkhos Mamrim pereq 2.

RYBS's notion of halakhah as a creative partnership between HQBH and
man.

Etc...

The original Devar Hashem was: Follow this process!

That was the whole point of my original post. That the process has
continuity, and therefore we don't care about a historical snapshot,
what this tanna or that amora was actually intending to say. Rather,
we want to understand the maamar *as it stands within the flow of
the mesorah*.

My idea wasn't just that this third path between historicism and
deconstructionism is necessary for mesorah. Rather, that this approach
to the sources is the very definition of mesorah!

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha