[Avodah] Acharonim (and Mussar) as TT, Redux

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer asked:

> I would assume that it means engaging in the study of either
> Torah she'b'Ksav or Torah she'b'al Peh. TSBK is easy = Tanach.
> TSBAP is more tricky. I assume it definitely includes
> everything up to "Rav Ashi v'Ravina sof Horo'oh" but I do not
> know how it extends betond that.
>
> [insert ten years here]
>
> My question remains, however, if one were to learn an Acharon
> of some sort that had no pesukim and/or ma'amarei Chazal,
> would it in and of itself somehow be considered a "Cheftza
> shel Torah" or not. Any mare mekomos or ra'ayos anyone?

I have no mareh mekomos, but here's my evidence:

Why would anyone make a demarcation, that at some point in history, new ideas would cease being a "cheftza shel Torah"? It sounds quite arbitrary to me that a timeline should make that distinction.

Let's bring the proposed definition to its logical conclusion: Suppose one were to learn an Acharon of some sort that DID mention both some pesukim and also some ma'amarei Chazal, and also contained some explanations of them. Would we say that ONLY the pesukim and ma'amarei Chazal count as "cheftza shel Torah", but not the explanations? Or would we say that the whole thing counts as "cheftza shel Torah"? It seems ludicrous to me to think that a person might spend all day learning Mishne Brurah or Mesilas Yesharim, and his only Talmud Torah for that time is when he happened to encounter a pasuk or maamar Chazal.

Here's a second "proof":

As I wrote, a timeline cannot arbitrarily decide what's Torah and what's not. On the other hand, as RYGB wrote, the definition of TSBK is easy - either something got written or it didn't. It's not that the timeline is making an artificial distinction. Rather, TSBK is defined by what got written and what did not get written.

Let's apply the same idea to TSBAP. As long as it is part of the chain from teacher to student (and "teacher" can be defined very loosely here, as in "mikol m'lamdai hiskalti"), it is "B'al Peh", and remains legitimate Torah, with no time limit (though I suppose there is a *quality* limit, in that anything sheker is no longer Torah).

This is not to say that everything that a teacher says is automatically a "cheftza shel Torah". It has to be in the context of explaining something which is already a cheftza shel Torah. For more info on this, check out previous discussions about learning mathematics l'shem Hilchos Eruvin (Torah) or learning mathematics lishma (not Torah), or learning astronomy l'shem Kiddush Hachodesh (Torah) or learning astronomy lishma (not Torah). Similarly, Mussar (as mentioned in the subject line of this thread) can be l'shem being a better Eved HaShem (Torah) or l'shem Making Friends And Influencing People (not Torah).

Akiva Miller

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