[Avodah] Truth and the Rambam

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 06, 2010 at 10:16:36PM -0400, Zvi Lampel wrote:
: The rishonim and acharonim treat "eilu v'eilu" as logically untenable, 
: indeed incomprehensible, if it is taken to mean at face value that 
: contradicting halachos of identical scenarios are both true...

I mentioned the Maharal and R' Tzadoq in previous emails.

Second, you presume we're talking about facts -- the word you use is
even "true" -- not law.

What if HQBH gave us many ways la'alos behar Hashem, and gave us a system
for finding different derakhim up the mountain based on where we are in
relation to the peak, how we see the world, and what kind of climbs we
are more capable of? Wouldn't then both results be equally correct?

...
: (Two blind men who, by feeling different parts of an elephant, each come 
: to a different conclusion about what the totality of the elephant is, 
: are both wrong. If each admits that the part he is feeling is a 
: different one, and therefore has different characteristics than that 
: felt and described by his fellow blind man, then each realizes that they 
: are not arguing, and will not think that the characteristics he 
: perceives form a kushya against what the other is describing.)

Simplifying models aren't "wrong", they are just "incomplete". IOW,
what if the blind man who felt its ear doesn't say "the elephant is like
a fan", but "the part of the elephant which I can relate is fan-like,
so I will use that approach to get closer to her."

A different mashal, one more akin to the Maharal...

This world is infintesimal compared to Hashem's emes. Kind of like the way
a 2D image is an infintestimal slice of the 3D object.

I can shine a light on an object and get a shadow on the wall. The shape
of the shadow depends on where I stand in relation to the object. I could
shine a light on the side of a cube to get a square. If I shine it on
a corner, I would get a hexagon.

Is that hexagon any less true than the square?

They are both projections of Divrei Elokim Chaim into this limited
universe.

R' Tzadoq (Tzidqas Tzadiq #17) would say that our havanah can get closer
to the full 3D object than the world of po'al can and focuses on that
gap as the point which causes machloqes. But still, the same basic
model applies.

: This is why Chazal refer to forgotten halachos being restored to their 
: [original] status. If something had really been both totally or 
: predominantly tamei and tahor in the identical scenario, depending upon 
: which diffracted view of the original intent one maintains, what was 
: there to restore?
: 
: So whatever is meant by the notion that HQBH's Original Intent 
: (kavayakhol) is diffracted into a spectrum of opinions by the time it 
: reaches the human mind, one cannot deny the fact---held not only by the 
: Rambam but by every rishon in the world, and indeed every Torah 
: source---that Judaism is defined by the transmission of what Moshe 
: Rabbeynu received from Sinai, the laws of which he presented to the 
: people there "as a shulchan aruch." He did not transmit to us 600,000 
: conflicting rulings or conflicting sevaros on each case.

I disagree, especially to this claim of "every rishon in the world, and
indeed every Torah source". MRAH didn't necessarily get every din in "as
a SA", but rather the system by which we can either derive (accumulative)
or create (constitutive) every din.

See the articles I pointed to. RMHalbertal is more of an academic. But
surely you would invest time to see why a RY like RMRosensweig disagrees
with you.

Just to deal with a couple of things they didn't:
...
: Rabbeynu Peretz on Eruvin 13b prefaces the Midrash (as he refers to it) 
: by asking how one can say "eilu v'eilu divrei Elokim Chaim, since, "if 
: it is asur, it isn't mutar; and if it is mutar, is isn't asur. And he 
: follows up on the Midrash by saying, "Nevertheless, there is a kushya 
: [on the face value of this Midrash] from things that already were, such 
: as the Mizbayach---for one authority brings proof for it being 60 amos, 
: and one brings proof for it being 20 amos....V'yesih lomar ... "eilu 
: v'eilu divrei Elokim Chaim" means that from the pesukim there is basis 
: to darshan like each opinion, but certainly there was only one way [it 
: could have been].

Your example is from "olam hapoal" -- history. Not pesaq. The mizbeiach
couldn't have been both.

BTW, I think RMMS builds up a case otherwise. I can't remember clearly, so
I will hopefully write something that jogs the memory of someone from our
Lub contingent. Obviously there is nothing for the two of us discuss unless
they fill it in. Something about a derashah in which the LR simultaneously
uses both sides of the machloqes about whether the command to build the
mishkan preceeded the eigel or not.

...
: One cannot deny the fact that the principle methodology by which the 
: poskim and Talmud determine the halacha is through citing precedent and 
: assuming that there is an original intent to reach for. Otherwise, it 
: would be pointless for any amora to pit a contradiction to another from 
: an earlier and higher authority. His opponent could always answer, 
: "Hah!...that's the way you, or Aharon HaKohen heard it at Sinai, but I'm 
: saying how I, or Nachshon ben Amindava heard it at Sinai!"

Why bother writing "one cannot deny" if you already know I do?)
Who said that search for precedent is about original intent?

And yes, they do often answer this why. "Ha R' Meir, ha R' Yehudah"
boils down to just that. You have your development of the ideas
HQBH gave us, I have mine.

: So if it is true that the souls of the arguing tannaim and amoraim 
: witnessing the Sinai revelation literally received different messages as 
: to, say, the kashrus or permissibility of something (and that the source 
: of halacha was their individual receptions of the revelation, rather 
: than Moshe Rabbeynu's transmission of the revelation he alone received) 
...

That is a oft-given explanation of the 60 ribo osios shebatorah as well
as of the shiv'im panim.

: first we must say that the dispute can only be concerning things that 
: were not stated explicitly. You must admit that this can only be true of 
: corollaries of the distinct halachos that Hashem told Moshe Rabbeynu. 
: Surely you do not doubt that all the minds at Sinai did get it clear 
: that animals with split hoofs that chew their cud are kosher and the 
: others are not. You must admit that all minds at Sinai got it clear that 
: melacha on Shabbos is assur, and no one received a diffracted idea that 
: it is mutar.

In cases where there is a valid machloqes, why couldn't both be miSinai?
Moshe couldn't be given multiple approaches to a concept if they happen
to conflict?

: Secondly, the same kabbalistic sources also state it becomes the task of 
: the Chachamim to determine what the halacha is...

Constructionism.

: see the methodology for doing this is eidus: tracing authoritative 
: statements as far back as possible and checking their consistency and 
: accuracy...

This is not well established, and we really do NOT find it in the
rishonim. There are geonim, OTOH, who do say this.

I think you are misinterpreting rishonim by forcing baalei pelugta
into agreement.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder]
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