[Avodah] Fwd: Re: Truth and the Rambam

[Micha Berger]

I think RDR and I are talking across each other largely because I
capitalized the "T" in "Truth". It caused conflation with something
else I wrote.

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 02:44:57PM -0400, David Riceman wrote:
>> I'm not sure of the relevence of any of this.

> You started by arguing about whether the Rambam views halacha as evolving.
> I was primarily interested in a side point: you seemed to be arguing
> that, according to the Rambam, halacha is an alternative to metaphysics.
> I think that's false, with the exception that, according to the Rambam,
> halacha provides an introduction to a few select metaphysical doctrines
> (like God's existence and unity).

I never intended to propose that "according to the Rambam, halacha is
an alternative to metaphysics." Since RZL also expressed uncertainty
about understanding my point, let me try again from a clean slate.

Notice how Hil' Mamrim never mentions the word "pesaq" or some other
language that would speak to the interpretation of law. The Rambam's
discussion of halachic authority is entirely about the creation of *new*
din or minhag.

Another lacuna from Hil' Mamrim is the concept of sevara. Everything
is from derashos -- again, because I believe the Rambam is discussing
new dinim exclusively. When there is a dispute in the implications of
existing law, it's right vs wrong.

Then we found that he looks to the mishnah to understand the mishnah, and
if the gemara's peshat seems a dochaq, the Rambam fits the gemara to the
mishnah. Rather than assuming the gemara represents *interpretation* if
the mishnah, as we're forced to conclude some more dachuq understanding,
and thus taking the amoraim's version of the mishnah as more halachically
binding than the mishnah as it reads to us -- and in particular to the
Rambam himself.

Similarly, the two letters in which the Rambam explicitly says he is
doing the same WRT the interpretations of the ge'onim of the Talmud Bavli.

Also, the Rambam ascribes all real machloqesin to differences in new
law, and thus why a halakhah leMoshe miSinai couldn't become subject to
a machloqes. I wrote "real machloqes", because there can obviously be
a dispute in which one side is wrong -- but an eilu va'eilu is bedavqa
in building new law. And this is why the Rambam focuses on batei
Hillel veShammai "shelo shimshu es rabosam", because the explosion of
disputes leshitaso must mean the multiplication of error.

I described the Rambam's approach to halakhah as a search for truth --
for determining what the law as legislated actually was.

I then tied this to Artisto's general gestalt about the value of truth,
and how man's highest calling is to seek truth. I only mentioned the
Rambam's notion of redemption through knowing philosophically about G-d
to show that he bought into that general worldview. And in that worldview,
a legal process is inferior to a hunt for facts.

Just as the Rambam sets the ideal, the Adam qodem hacheit, as being
about truth vs falsehood, and similarly ends the Moreh as giving a
hierarchy of perfections - property, bodily, moral and finally "the
highest, intellectual faculties; the possession of such notions which
lead to true metaphysical opinions as regards G-d."

And in such a worldview, halakhah being fact-finding rather than
law-interpreting would be more noble.

As I wrote, I understand the Rambam as placing following halakhah as a
/tool/ for allowing the obtaining truths about G-d.




Now to move on to how that is consistent with the project of the Yad.
Why did the Rambam tell chakhmei Luneil to go to the primary sources
and second-guess him? Is this what he expected of his talmidim?

I think that since halakhah that is nispasheit is binding, the Rambam
saw a much smaller role for going to primary sources when dealing with
the community of his followers. But not that the two approaches were
different in kind.

...
> No, the Rambam's introduction is a common motif of advertising: now you  
> have dozens of tools in your kitchen but you can replace them all with  
> my new slicingdicingcrushingmincing machine; now you have dozens of  
> books in your home to help your schoolkid, now you can replace them all  
> with my new superduperencyclopedia.  The Rambam says everyone "katan  
> v'gadol", can replace their entire Beis Midrash with the MT and a Tanach.

"Halakhah" 41 explains that he wrote the Yad so that everyone would know
dinei Torah rather than needing to go through "kol eilu hachiburin vehapeirushin
hanimtza'im miymos Rabeinu haQadosh ve'ad achshav".

I assume RDR is referring to the next "halakhah", #42:
Until all the laws would be revealed leqaton velagadol in the law of
every mitzvah and mitzvah, "kedei shelo yehei adam tzarikh lechibur
acheir ba'olam bedin medinei Yisrael".

It's clear from Talmud Torah 1:11 that he expected halachic decisions to
come from talmud, in the sense of getting a feel from the flow of TSBP and
its reasoning. The question is whether he expected someone to be able
to engage in talmud without returning to the books called the "talmud"
and just deducing from what was in the Yad.

What I see is what boils down to a claim that the MT replaces the study
of mishnah -- in the sense of settled halakhah, the "shelish bemishnah".
(And note the name of the work itself, although that's not muchrach.)
I do not see anything that says that someone capable on focusing on
talmud, should stop there. And it would seem from his advice to Luneil
that he didn't hold it should.

Again, assuming a lack of "two schools" approach, one for his own talmidim
and one for Luneil, in contrast to RDR's assumption.

For that matter, his own talmidim were told to open the gemara when
he and the Rif disagree. Which means, if nothing else, the Yad didn't
replace the need to study Rif for them. And I saw this line as "if
the halakhah that is nispasheit to our" -- the Rambam's and Rif's --
"community is inconsistent, that's when you really need to take the time
to resolve it yourself.

But all of this is somewhat tangential. Whether the Rambam had a different
plan for his own talmidim than for Luneil, what I wrote above is still
a description of how the Rambam himself "did halakhah".

Which I find both (1) very different from that of other rishonim, or
of acharonim down through the various derakhim we follow today, and (2)
blatantly Aristotilian in tenor.

Please let me know (perhaps off-list) if I was clearer this time.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter