[Avodah] dinosaurs

[T613K at aol.com]

RMB wrote:  Does one continue to follow a rav, say in our case the  
dinosaur-denying
mechaneikh's rabbeim and their rabbeim, when you find that  he labeled
you a kofeir for a belief you cannot (as well as don't want to)  shake?
 
TK:  What do you mean by "following" him?  If you do not share  his beliefs 
then you are /not/ following him.  I guess you can still follow  his psak 
in matters of kashrus and Shabbos, but if you fundamentally disagree  with 
his hashkafos then in what sense could you ever be said to be "following"  
that rav?  I don't even understand your question.
 


As it so happens, the rebbe in the BeyondBT story only said there are no  
dinosaurs.  He did not say that if you believe in dinosaurs you are an  
apikores.

 
 
 
RMB:  Eilu va'eilu works fine when it comes to yom tov sheini shel  galiyos.
It gets messier WRT gittin, since a qulah my poseiq doesn't  recognize
might mean children (from a second marriage) who my children may  not
marry.... 

EvE becomes a paradox altogether when dealing with someone  labeling
something kefirah. Because it applies to ideas, one can close  the
referential loop.


TK:   First of all, Eilu v'eilu does not mean that IN PRACTICE  you adopt 
two different psakim simultaneously -- keeping and not-keeping a  second day 
of yom tov, for example.  It only means that both views have  some validity, 
but you still have to choose one or the other for practical  purposes.
 
 
RMB: Shitah A: A and B are boh eilu va'eilu Shitah  B: Shitah A is  kefirah,
and thus outside eilu va'eilu

What does shitah A's acceptance  of shitah B imply about A's belief
in itself?  



TK:  I think it implies tremendous self-confidence!  "I know you  think I'm 
an apikores, I think you're wrong about dinosaurs and wrong about me,  but 
I respect you anyway."  That sounds like a very unflappable man to  me!  A 
can accept with total equanimity the fact that B considers him an  apikores, 
and it doesn't faze him a bit.  
 
There is something slippery about your logic here but I'm having trouble  
pinpointing what it is. In terms of EvE, Shita A does NOT accept Shitah B,  
it just accepts that there may be some validity or some precedent for Shitah  
B.  
 
When Hillel accepted some children as non-mamzerim while Shamai considered  
them mamzerim,  and Hillel still said "eilu ve'eilu," it only meant  that 
they accept Shamai as being within the pale and not outside the pale of  
normative Orthodoxy.  (Yes I know I am using the word "Orthodoxy"  
anachronistically)   It did not mean that they considered the children  in question to be 
both mamzerim and non-mamzerim simultaneously!  ("Schroedinger's mamzer"?)
 
 
 
RMB:  So I think this poses a real question for adherents of shitah A.  Can 
their
eilu va'eilu include shitah B and its exclusion of their own  opinion? Do
we say palginan divura -- it's only on the points about which  it's
kefirah that A-nikim reject B? 
 
TK:  I truly believe you are not thinking logically here at all.   Let's 
say I, an adherent of Shitah A, believe in dinosaurs -- not only that they  
lived, but that they lived millions of years ago.  Let's say Ploni, an  
adherent of Shitah B, believes that I am an apikores.  Let's say I also  believe 
in EvE.  Does that mean that I must now simultaneously believe that  there 
WERE dinosaurs and at the same time must believe that there WERE NO  
dinosaurs?!  And furthermore,  must I believe that there WERE  dinosaurs and at the 
same time, must I believe that I am an apikores?!
 
The problem is that you are defining EvE wrong.  
 
EvE only means that I, an adherent of Shitah A, accept that those who  
believe in Shitah B, yesh lahem al mi lismoch and they are still ehrlicher  
Yidden.  I do not have to accept that their shitah is CORRECT!  I  can believe 
in EvE while believing that the other side is INCORRECT.  EvE  simply does 
/not/ mean "Both sides are right"!
 
Your problem, it seems to me, is not really an intellectual problem, even  
though it is couched in intellectual terms.  I sense, rather, an emotional  
problem -- an inability to accept, emotionally, the lack of symmetry between 
two  shitos, one of which says, "You're wrong, but you have the right to 
think what  you think" while the other says, "You're wrong, and you're an 
apikores."  
 
 
You seem to think that A has only two choices:  accept B and therefore  
reject his own self -- stop believing in dinosaurs.  OR, accept his own  
beliefs -- keep believing in dinosaurs -- but then exclude B from the universe  of 
acceptable beliefs the same way B excluded A, keeping things  symmetrical.
 
But there is a third way, the way EvE really operates:  A continues to  
believe in dinosaurs, B believes they never existed.  A believes that B is  
wrong, but at the same time, he believes that B is an ehrlicher Jew and he  
continues to respect him.   He knows that B does not consider him an  ehrlicher 
Jew in return but he loves B anyway.
 
 
 
 
 
"Outwitted"
by Edwin Markham
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to  flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him  in!  





--Toby Katz
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