[Avodah] Truth and the Rambam

[Zvi Lampel]

On 10/19/2010 8:47 PM, I, Zvi Lampel, wrote:
> Shoresh Shayni reads to me that the reverse is true: that  the 
> pesukim-associated ("sheh-yismachu-hu") law-details that were 
> mekuballim from Moshe were the exception that one finds in the Talmud 
> (relatively) only "p'amim"--although of course they included all the 
> ikkarim. First the Rambam writes they were "motzie (KPCH has 
> "nilmadim") through the 13 rules "rov dinei haTorah," and there was 
> sometimes machlokess over them, and then adds that there were also 
> other dinim that were mekuballim that were (therefore) not subject to 
> being contested. So the "rov" is going on the rule-generated dinim. 
> And it continues to read that way to the end.
Add to this the fact that the Rambam refers to the 13-middos mitzvos 
that amount to "many thousands" as "mah sheh-/nilmad/ heim anafim min 
ha-shorashim sheh-ne'emru lo l'Moshe b'Sinai  b'biur" (that which was 
learned were branchlets [anafim] [extending] from the 
explicitly-said-to-Moshe Rabbeynu roots. And that  the in the passage 
about the disputes between Shammai and Hillel, the Rambam uses the 
description of "/anfei anafim/" referring to laws that are 
unquestionably not mekuballim

The Rambam also notes both in his Int. to Mishneh Torah and his Int. to 
PhM that the enterprise of /generating/ law details through th e13 midos 
took place in every generation from Moshe Rabbeynu and on. This alone 
would seem to make such 13-midos-associated law details the majority 
over the ones that were mekubal.

> Zvi Lampel
>
>