[Avodah] SA and BY

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:01:11PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 9:15 PM, Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com> wrote:
: > The nosei keilim often use the BY to explain the SA, so they obviously
: > felt differently. The SA is rather the Cliff Notes to the BY,>>

: > except when they disagree

: Aderabba. This shows that the acceptance of SA wasn't comparable with
: the redaction of either the Mishna or the Talmudim. Much more of a
: grey area.

I think RET's "they disagree" was the SA and BY disagreeing, which
is after all the only case where one would have to ask which is more
authoritative. When the SA and BY disagree, obviously the SA isn't
serving as a summary of the BY.

But in any case...

The mishnah was definitely a special case, and I think the CI's argument
about the mishnah being tied to the end of the 2 millenia of Torah would
explain why.

However, both the shas and SA were not accepted as "the code" in terms
of being a list of laws as we must practice them (even allowing for a
small number of exceptions to the rule). I instead described the
acceptance in these terms:
> By accepting the SA as "*the* codex" (at least in the Seph universe),
> we're saying that the SA is our baseline for assessing all arguments
> since its composition. That anyone post SA who wishes to disagree with
> it would feel a requirement to justify the machloqes by bringing sources.

If "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", we use the SA to
measure the extraordinariness of a claim.

Which again, would make a difference between how we treat rabbanim who
came before that yardstick and those who came after. It's the diffrence
between who themselves we would subject to the same definition of
"extraordinaty claim" and therefore require their own such proof.

And there were acharonim who defy the line, at least in the eyes of
their own qehillos. Litvaks who follow the Gra, Chassidim who follow
the Besh"t, etc... even against rishonim and the SA w/ Rama.

(I don't know why you said "the Talmudim" -- in what sense is the Y-mi
accepted as a final code by any community, any more than the Tosefta or
the Tur?)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You will never "find" time for anything.
micha at aishdas.org        If you want time, you must make it.
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