[Avodah] Truth and the Rambam

[David Riceman]

  RZL:
> I don't understand the import of your response. I was questioning your 
> statement that the Rambam "claims that few laws were deduced from them 
> [the 13 middos sheh-haTorah nidreshets bahen]," by citing his 
> statements that "rov" halachos resulted from these methods and that 
> the 1,700 halachos that Osniel ben Kenaz reconstructed were only a 
> fraction of the total number of laws generated through the 13 middos.
>
> Regarding the passages about Shammai and Hillel's disciples or about 
> the classes of laws derived through the 13 middos--I don't see what 
> bearing that has on the subject.
>
> (You refer to laws being deduced with and without "ambiguity." Did 
> R'KPCH translate the Arabic "mesupachos" vs. Al Harizi's "machlokess"? 
> Even if he did, I think the context and any attempt at making sense 
> out of the passages would render the thought as Al Harizi did--some of 
> these laws were subject to machlokos and some were not.  I.e., the 
> sages deriving laws through the 13 middos were sometimes unanimous in 
> their conclusions and sometimes disagreed (yeish ba-hem machlokess vs. 
> ein ba-hem machlokess). In the time of Hillel and Shammai's talmidim, 
> there was an explosion of such [unresolved] disagreements.)
>
The Rambam was making a necessary distinction between classes of laws, 
not a contingent distinction.  The first class can be resolved by a 
person saying "I have a tradition", and the third class cannot.  The 
first class consist of traditions, many of which, in addition, can be 
deduced by MSNB.

I suggest that the halachos of ObK were of this category, and the 
deduction jogged people's memory.  Cf. Yadayim 4:3 "al tahushu 
l'minyanchem" (there are several other sugyos where something like this 
happens as well).

David Riceman