[Avodah] tosafot

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 12:58:10PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
:> A stirah in Tosfos, Gittin 31 (Assur) and Menachos 55 (Muttar).

: As an aside I never like the phrase "Stirah" for Tosafot. These are probably
: different baale Tosafot and in different mesechtot likely different editors.
: So I would phrase it as a machloket between baale tosafot rather than a
: Stirah

Except the Chida considered it a setirah that required resolution. (As
per the rest of the paragraph you quoted.) And this is far from the
only case where an acharon tries to resolve a setirah in "stam Tosafos".

This subject came up before, when RRW wrote
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol10/v10n045.shtml#09>, which shifted a
discussion of the CI and acharonim who change the normative pesaq to
when do we rely on Tosafos and what it is Tosafos set out to do. (Eg
when they justify learning almost exclusively shas, or that we don't
need mayim acharonim. As well as the more usual cases.) A few posts
later in that discussion we get to R' Dr Josh Backon's post, which is
short enough to quote rather than post a link:
> TOSAFOT: saying that "Tosafot" does this and does that doesn't take into
> account that there were over 800 (eight hundred) baalei tosafot over 5
> generations in 4 different countries.

RRW suggested in reply
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol10/v10n060.shtml#05>:
> Good point.  That is EXACTLY how Tosafos is by defintion a da'as rabbim and 
> NOT a da'as yachid

> You could make a claim that any STAM Tosafos - almost like a Stam Mishna 
> -represents a consensus.

> Illustration: the very fact that kitniyos is deemed by Tosafos to be assur is 
> a reflection that it caught on in MANY MANY kehillos throughout Ashkenaz, and 
> dspite the protestations of Ri of Courville, etc.   

> IOW if Rif or Rambam state something, you cannot prima facie presume it has 
> the weight of all of Minhag Sepharad, but OTOH when Tosafos says something 
...
> OTOH, iut has been said that 20 Gdolim from the same school does not 
> represent extra weight.  So Ba'alei Tosafos, like Beis Hillel, has the wight 
> of only one "dei'ah".

RET, you yourself then turned this into its own thread
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=T#TOSAFOT>. So, when
you say "I never like the phrase 'Stirah' for Tosafot" I can attest it's
been true for at least 10-1/4 years.

RJB replied with something about Tosafos vs Tosafos haRosh (and how
being related to the Soncinos helps rishonim get published), and RRW
similarly comments on girsa'os.

RRW's consensus theory would explain the desire to resolve stam Tosafos.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke