[Avodah] Classical Academia, Deconstruction, and Mesorah

[Michael Makovi]

> The procedure by which the Baalei Mesorah produced our
> current text was Al Pi Rov, by a majority "vote" from among the reliable
> texts which they had available. ... Yet, the very procedure which they
> used -- Rov -- is only for use in B'dieved situations.
> R' Akiva Miller

Indeed. I forgot to mention that Professor*** Leiman brings a sevara
as well: if an incompetent sofer today produced thousands of treif
Torah scrolls and glutted the market, would we change our kosher text
to match the new majority? Of course not. We follow rov only when
there is a safeiq, but with an incompetent scribe, there's no safeiq
that his scrolls are treif, and so we don't go by the rov.  Similarly,
if we found Moshe Rabbenu's scroll - and assuming we truly were sure
that it was authentic - then there'd be no safeiq, and we wouldn't go
by rov, just as Rambam didn't go by rov, but instead went with the
Aleppo Codex.

My own thoughts: In the Temple, they found three scrolls and took a
majority of each textual reading; the reason, as it seems to me, is
that they had nothing else to go by, and this was the best they could
do. It seems to me that contra R' Zvi Yehuda's version of Hazon Ish,
this is *precisely* the same as an academic historical attempt! Now,
perhaps their method was crude by modern academic standards, but the
point is that they used historical evidence - these three Torah
scrolls - to reconstruct as best they could what they thought was the
best textual version. (Today they'd also use whatever it is that
modern academic scholars do.) Presumably, in the Temple, had they
found the three scrolls AND Moshe Rabbenu's scroll, they would have
ignored the three scrolls and gone with Moshe's alone. In short: they
went by a majority of the three scrolls, not because of any sort of
halakhic al-pi-rov lo ba-shamaim hi, but rather, because
scientifically, when you don't know what the best reading is, your
best bet, pragmatically, is to go by majority. But if there's no
safeiq, then you don't go by majority. And thus, Rambam followed the
Aleppo Codex, and not the rov.

So as far as I can tell, I think it is clear that we'd go by the text
of Moshe Rabbenu's scroll. On the other hand, Moshe's own scroll
itself might be treif. First, it'd probably be smudged, have some
fading letters, etc. Second, it'd be in ketav ivrit, but our scrolls
must be in ketav ashurit. But even though the scroll itself would be
treif, the textual reading found therein, once transcribed into fresh
clean writing in ketav ashurit, would be kosher. (Professor Leiman,
ibid., notes that one can write a kosher sefer torah from an unkosher
source text, such as a humash. I don't know the laws of this, so I'll
take his word for it.)

*** I am only referring to him as I have seen him most commonly
referred to in literature; R' Micha points out that Professor Leiman
does have smiha. I'd note that similarly, Professor Marc Shapiro also
has smiha, even though he is *never* referred to as R' Marc Shapiro.

Michael Makovi