[Avodah] New editions

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 05:23:16PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: Given aiui that R Yosef karo felt that the b"y was his magnum opus
: and the s"a was a summary-why not date from b"y's publishing?

My argument is based on what accepting a code does to how we relate
to those who precede the code in distinction to those who post-date
it. Thus, it's specific to the SA because of its acceptance -- not
because of relative merit.

Again, since I realize I'm having a clarity problem, I'm arguing that
by accepting a code, we create a difference between those we expect to
have to be explained in light of the code, and those who we can lean on
as authorities to grant us license to differ from it. In the case of
the SA, that created the difference in how we treat rishonim with how
we treat acharonim.

On RAF's issue of whether that implies authorship date or acceptance
date, in the case of the talmud bavli, we follow authorship. Even though
redaction took generations, giving the savoraim a gray area status,
there were centuries between chasimas hashas and talmud bavli being
accepted as The Talmud Bavli. We don't consider the geonim of those
centuries as authoritative as amoraim, though. Even if in their own day,
they didn't believe their opinions had to be measured by their distance
from the gemara's masqanos. We, by accepting shas, created a situation
where they have to be.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is harder to eat the day before Yom Kippur
micha at aishdas.org        with the proper intent than to fast on Yom
http://www.aishdas.org   Kippur with that intent.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                       - Rav Yisrael Salanter