[Avodah] Sevara Rules

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 03:41:55AM +1000, Meir Rabi wrote:
: Some say, there used not to be much machlokes, because everyone knew the
: correct halacha, and our current state of confusion is the result of our
: forgetting all that.
...
: But the Ritva Eruvin 13 cites a Medrash that every Halacha taught to Moshe R
: on Har Sinai was taught with many reasons for opposing conclusions, Muttar
: and Assur, Tamei and Tahor etc....

We have discussed this before, and the Ritva is far from alone. See R'
Moshe Halbertal's "Contoversy in Halacha"
<http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/halbert.html>
and R' Michael Rosensweig's "Elu Va-Elu Divre Elokim Hayyim: Halakhic
Pluralism And Theories Of Controversy"
<http://www.lookstein.org/articles/elu_ve_elu.htm>
There are maamarei chazal indicating 2 or 3 positions. (RMH says
three, but I think what he calls the "accumulative" and "constitutive"
understandings coincide.)

I summarize and give my own 2 cents at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-i.shtml>
and <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-ii.shtml>

RHM describes the Ramban, Ritva and Ran as being of the constitutive camp
(ie authority is given to a poseiq to contitute law). The Rambam is of
the accumulative camp (ie that halakhah is built analytically from prior
halakhah). None of these major rishonim would therefore see Eliyahu's
role as restoring pesaq from memory.

But there woudl still be a role.

Constitutively, someone with mosaic ordination has more authority.

Also, we lost the art of making derashos. Eliyahu could restore an entire
means of accumulating new pesaqim from existing Torah. Not to mention the
whole problem of what other modes of reasoning we could use bolstering
with after generations of nisqatnu hadoros.

As per the famous mashal -- we may know more, but our ability to create
knowledge is diminishing. With Eliyahu, we would have both the knowledge
and the knowledge-creating skills.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 36th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        5 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
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