[Avodah] Truth and the Rambam

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 12:37:43AM -0400, Zvi Lampel wrote:
: (1) The Rambam, in explaining talmudic texts and poskening therefrom,
: originally practiced in principle a "legal-process approach"
: of uncritically following the Geonim's decisions and explanations
: of talmudic passages...

Not "uncritically". However, just as a contemporary teshuvah would cite
the Shach or the Taz, assuming their opinion of what was said before is
more authoritative than our own, so too the Rif does so WRT the geonim.

The Rif actually argues with the geonim regularly. I'm currently exploring
the reality of the idea (from a paper RRW sent me) that the Rif was the
first to shift from studying who said what in the gemara to focusing
more on the general flow of the sugya.

The Rambam's approach in the Yad would be the same as a teshuvah that
ignores the early acharonim, feeling that this reliance on earlier
rabbanim to understand those even earlier introduces too many errors.

: (2) However, between writing the Payrush HaMishnayos and writing the
: Mishneh Torah, in his unique Aristotelian-influenced pursuit to reach
: a one-and-only-one truth about things, he developed a new principle
: of independent analysis of the talmudic texts, to determine their
: one-and-only original intent, and at times found himself at odds with
: what the Geonim said.

: I seriously question this. The Rambam did not say he formerly held in
: principle to ignore original intent in favor of some legal process. I
: only see that he regretted a former lack of sufficiently testing the
: Geonim's interpretations against the text to which they were applied.

: Rashi, too, many times differs with his predecessors' interpretations,
....

Which is how your overstatement created a strawman. Rashi tried to fit
his precedecessors, and saw the text through their eyes. It was when
that was impossible that he differed.

...
: However, I cannot find anywhere in these iggeros the Rambam attributing 
: to others uncritical reading of the Gemora through the eyes of the 
: Geonim....

Here's some of what I quoted at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n171.shtml#06>:
    That which is codified in the chibbur [i.e. the Yad -mb] is
    undoubtedly correct, and so we wrote as well in the Perush HaMishnah,
    and that which is in your hands [an early version of the Peirush
    haMishnayos -mb] is the first version which I released without proper
    diligence. And I was influenced in this by the Sefer HaMitzvos of
    Rav Chefetz, z"l, and the mistake was in his [analysis], and I just
    followed after him without verifying. And when I further evaluated
    and analyzed the statements [of Chazal], it became clear that the
    truth was what we recorded in the chibbur and we corrected the Perush
    HaMishnah accordingly. The same happened in so many places that the
    first version of the Perush HaMishnah was subsequently modified, tens
    of times. Each case we had originally followed the opinion of some
    Gaon, z"l, and afterwards the area of error became clear. (pg 647)

Does this not say that the Rambam lost faith in relying on the geonim
to interpret the rishonim over just going to the books himself? His
own reason and definition of mitake trumps the value of the earlier
source.

: I have a wonderful resource, the sefer "HaMachlokess BaHalacha" (Inst. 
: Of Jewish Law, Boston U. School of Law and The Israeli Diaspora Inst.), 
: which on pages 294 ff. quotes Rishonim in addition to the Rambam who 
: maintain that those qualified with sufficient learning and stature were 
: not bound by the commentaries or pesak of the Geonim when the source 
: texts do not bear them out...

WHich fits my analogy of the Igeros Moshe citing the Bach.

I'm arguing that the Rambam gave up on trying to even work out the shitas
hageonim and rejecting it -- he simply went to "Rav Ashi veRavina sof
hora'ah" as he saw it.

: I therefore question the entire endeavor of distributing Rishonim into 
: pigeon-holes of more or less obsequience to the Geonim...

This isn't about more or less obsequience, if I felt the Rambam bought
into the system altogether. As I wrote, his approach to talmud Torah
doesn't reflect acknowledging a flow of interpretation since the original
author.

...
: For me to accept the extraordinary claim otherwise, you would have to 
: show me where a rishon says, "We don't care about the truth; we are only 
: interested in the formality of uncritically following the Geonim's 
: conclusions." ...

Same (inadvertant) strawman.

...
: When I called attention to the different takes in the "chatzi nezek
: tsruros" sugya Rambam and Rashi have on the relationship of the Gemora
: to the Mishnah, I said that whereas Rashi understands the Mishna in
: light of the Gemora, Rambam understands the Gemora in light of the
: Mishna. But I see no reason to deny the natural default assumption that
: both Rashi and the Rambam believed that their takes represented what
: the Gemora understands to be the genuine original intent of the Mishnah.
: Their methodologies differed in how we are to understand what the Gemora
: meant to say the Mishna's original intent was...

The Rambam gives more weight to the original than to later interpretation
not only when he is second-guessing geonim but also when comparing the
mishnah and the gemara.

This is a denial of the flow of interpretation, a continuity down
the genarations. I'm saying the Rambam's methodology is so radically
different, it doesn't really fit the generally accepted definition of
"halachic process"!

...
: The idea that in transmitting the mesorah, the legal status of objects,
: actions or thoughts should conform to a single original Intent predates
: Aristotle and goes back to Moshe Rabbeynu and beyond. The entire
: enterprise in the Gemora that pits one Mishnah or speaker against another
: and concludes either that the later speaker is in error or that one of
: the statements must be modified so that they conform, assumes that there
: is a single original idea that must be complied with.

What about the notion that eilu va'eilu reflects that fact that HQBH's
Original Intent (kavayakhol) is diffracted into a spectrum of opinions
by the time it reaches the human mind? Or the Constitutive approach to
law of the Ramban, Ritva and Ran, which leads to their understanding
of machloqes?

See Rashi (Kesuvos 57a, s.v. "ha QM"L"), Ritva (Eiruvin 13b "eilu
va'eilu") and every other rishon I know of (aside from the Rambam)
on plurality in machloqes.

The Rambam, OTOH, would assert that one tanna must have erred. Picture
him saying, as the above Rashi does, that
    ki peligi terei amora'ei bedin or be'issur veheteir,
    kol chad amar hakhi mistaveir taama,
    ein kan sheqer.
    Kol chad amar sevara didei...
    Ve'ika lemeimar "eilu ve'ulu DEC"H"
    zimnin deshayakh hai ta'ama vezimnin deshayakh hai taama.

Rashi's opinion works because he holds that halakhah is a legal process,
not a single truth to be mined out of the sources.

Which I'm saying is unlike the Rambam.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
micha at aishdas.org        but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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