[Avodah] Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise!

[Prof. Levine]

At 01:12 PM 6/22/2011, R. Zev Sero wrote:

>On 21/06/2011 1:17 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:
> > Be this as it may, I have wondered more than once how the ARI could
> > come along and change so many things and have these changes accepted
> > by many communities. It is all the more surprising to me given that he
> > lived for only 38 years according to many sources.
>
>It's because he didn't make anything up himself; everything he taught
>came from his rebbe, Eliyohu Hanovi.  He revealed secrets that had not
>been known before him, so it's logical that people changed their
>minhogim to bring them into line with these new revelations, just as
>the medical discoveries of the past 200 years have caused everyone to
>change their lifestyles.

RSRH comments on Devarim 30:12  "It is not in heaven, that you could 
say: Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, and
make us understand it so that we may carry it out?"

The knowledge and deeds that it has in mind are not in
the realm of the supernatural, the celestial, and all the Divine revelations
necessary for understanding and fulfilling it have already been given to
us in their entirety; nothing of them remains in heaven. Hence, you cannot
say: Where will we find someone endowed with a superhuman spirit,
who will penetrate into the secrets of heaven for us, or who will bring
down to us a new revelation from heaven, to complete our knowledge?
Only if we find such a person endowed with the spirit of God will we be
able to fulfill the Torah in accordance with God's Will.

IMO this contradicts what you have written about Eliyohu 
HaNovi.  Again, as R. A. Miller said many times about stories like 
this, "We are not mechuyav to believe these stories."

Rav Hirsch points out a number of times that it is not the Torah that 
is to be changed to fit the times, but it is the job of the Jew to 
"fit" the times to the Torah.  Thus, it seems to me that your remark 
about medical discoveries of the past 200 years causing lifestyle 
changes is not relevant to Torah.


Yitzchok Levine 
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