[Avodah] Truth and the Rambam, (was: How game theory solved a religious mystery)

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 02:46:24PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: RMB wrote:
:> If we buy into the Rambam's model of what halakhah is
:> -- which, again, has Aristotelian foundation -- not only
:> did the chassidim bend the halachic process into a
:> pretzel, there are NO observant Jews today. And thus
:> the contrapositive, if we accept the halachic process as
:> practiced by acharonim and arguably most rishonim,
:> then what do we do with what the Rambam describes?

: Can you elaborate, please?

First, an overall observation about the role of Truth in the Rambam's
perspective. Leshitaso, Yedi'ah is everything -- it's the means that
makes a homosapien a ben adam WRT hashgachah peratis (Moreh 3:18), the
key to olam haba, the essence of avodas Hashem (3:50), mitzvos exist
to remove falsehood and teach the truth (3:26), etc... All mediation
between Hashem and the universe is via intellects (mal'akhim) and active
intellects, and many more examples.

The goal of life is to apprehend the Truth. Which is ultimately,
apprehending HQBH and how He runs the world. (As in the Rambam's peshat
in Moshe's requesting to see Hashem.)

In all this he is very Aristotilian. As I put it before, Hil' Dei'os
becomes proof that one truly mastered Yesodei haTorah, but the basic
Truths of Hil' Yesodei haTorah are to the Rambam's mind, the essence of
man's tafqid in this world. To Aristo, behaviors follow knowledge and
opinion, middos are consequences of knowledge.

And so, I find it unsurprising to assume the Rambam views pesaq as
a pursuit of truth rather than as a legal process. Now to explain
what I mean by that...

As I already cited from the two igeros RMShapiro translated (as part
of his argument against the historicity of Brisker derekh), the Rambam
consciously chose to understand the gemara as it read to him, and
abandoned his previous approach, which he credits to his predecessors
as well, of reading the gemara through the prism of the geonim. He felt
the latter was too error-prone.

Similarly, there are numerous cases in which Rashi explains the mishnah
as understood by the gemara, even if it's not the most straightforward
read, whereas the Rambam explains the mishnah kipeshuto. (Rashi fits the
mishnah to the gemara, the Rambam is more likely to fit the gemara to
the mishnah.) One example we discussed here in the past is chatzi nezeq
tzeroros. Another case is the Rambam on Tamis 5:6, which understands
the mishnah to be discussing the requirement for mechuserei kaparah to
stand outside the sha'ar niqanor. In contrast to Rashi (Pesachim 82a)
which says it's about actual full temei'im who were standing by a gate
to Har haBayis. The Maharsha in Pesachim asks about this Rambam, as he
seems to be conflicting with the gemara there. Re'ei sham. Yes, there
are teirutzim; I'm just showing one example among many about where the
Rambam is willing to place his dochaq -- on the interpreter, not the
primary source.

I once contrasted three approaches to texts:

The classical academic tried to find the original meaning of a text.

The deconstructionist realizes that that pursuit is futile, that we
never encounter a text with a purely clean slate, and therefore shifted
the game to being an analysis of the reader's encounter with the text.

I suggested that the way halakhah is viewed (with the Rambam as an
exception) is somewhere in between. What Rav Meir meant when he said
something in the mishnah might be of historical interest, but what is
relevent is how Rebbe understood it when recording it. And that in fact
is only relevent in how R' Yochanan and Reish Laqish, Abayei and Rava,
Ravina and Rav Ashi, etc... understood Rebbe. And they in turn are
understood in terms of how the geonim and rishonim explain them, and we
really care more about the interpretations of the Shach and the Taz, R'
Aqiva Eiger, R' CO Grozinsky, RMF and RSZA el al of the rishonim than
some historical pursuit of the rishon's original intent.

Halakhah is an oral tradition -- the intent is for a checked evolution,
for progressive interpretation.

Rather than original intent or final encounter, we take a historical
flow, a middle path. And it's the weight of that momentum that should
impact the reader.

This is valid because the pursuit of pesaq is the interpretation of law.
And law allows for multiple valid interpretations that the decisor must
select among.

The Rambam, OTOH, is a classicist. He learned texts looking for
original intent. HQBH's, if it's a din de'oraisa, the beis din who
enacted a law, if a derabbanan, the oldest copy of a recorded pesaq, if
neither. Therefore, if his read differed from the weight of historical
interpretation of the gemara, he simply found the geonim to be "wrong",
and thus relying on them was an error-prone approach to studying gemara.

By the Rambam's system, there is far less established law, since his
only concept of precedent is that of the Legislator, legislators, or
pre-Ravina clarification of unknowns. So one has personal decisionmaking
space in many questions we would consider decided.

OTOH, he also doesn't allow for reinterpretation of existing law. One
doesn't follow a dochaq (objectively or by personal taste) read in the
gemara because "that's how the world holds".

I therefore think that the Rambam would consider all of us "off the
derekh".

Does your wife wash mayim acharonim? Do you allow someone who claps in
shul take the amud -- or is he a mechalel Shabbos befarhesia? Think of
all the shifts in nusach between the gemara and ALL of our contemporary
siddurim. The Rambam doesn't allow for shift from anything set by
Chazal -- as he personally felt was the correct way to read chazal. At
least if you followed your own read uninfluenced by subsequent pesaq and
their popularity, you would be following his version of the halachic
process. You would be wrong in the perat, but at least on the right
derekh.

And therefore conversely... If what we're doing is that far from the
Rambam's notion of how halakhah works, what does that say about the Rambam
in comparison to the rest of the halachic mesorah? And so, I was led to
a very uncomfortable place, one where I wonder how the SA -- and we --
can use the Rambam as a halachic source is he is "playing a different
game" than we are? (I know intellectually you can; I have an open kasha
[qushya] that I personally find pressing.)

GCT!
-Micha

Cc: RZLampel

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