[Avodah] Halacha is about sources. Lo BaShamayim hi.

[Micha Berger]

Let's look at the phrase in context. The walls of a tanur shel akhnai
was assembled of multiple rings, with the cracks filled in by sand.

The Chakhamim held that each ring was its own keli, and therefore once
made tamei, even if they were separated and reassembled, the "new"
oven is still tamei because at least one of the rings still is. R'
Eliezer was choleiq, that the keli is the oven, and so the reassembled
oven is tahor. They both received a mesorah about tum'ah and breaking
up a keli, and are arguing about its implications to this case. We have
G-d Himself saying R' Eliezer understood the implications to the earlier
mesorah. But lehalakhah, we follow the rabbim.

Thus, I take the story of "lo bashamayim hi" as proof that the rules
of halachic authority are more important than which understanding of
the prior sources is more likely to be correct.


But to really understand that gemara, we need to contrast it to the
bas qol which said we hold like Beis Hillel over Beis Shammai, since
there we /do/ follow the bas qol. BH was greater in number, Beis Shammai
was wiser. And so, in the case where we do not consider "lo bashamayim
hi" to be applicable, we do obey the bas qol promoting authority over
intellectual acumen.

LAD, this is because halakhah is a legal process. As long as an answer
is a valid result of that process, it is just as "right". The better
answer is the one that has more authority, not the one that is more
logical.

To continue: "The one that is more logical" is really "the one *I find*
more logical". Obviously the rov who hold otherwise find the other side
the more logical one.



I think Lisa well advances what I wrote about, the idea that TSBP needs
to be a living chain down the ages, and not a neo-Qaraitic attachment
to Shas or the Rambam or whatever code or set of codes.

See also http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/08/postmodernism-and-mesorah.shtml
where I describe mesorah as a third choice between classical academic
search for authorial intent on one hand and deconstructionism on the
other.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every second is a totally new world,
micha at aishdas.org        and no moment is like any other.
http://www.aishdas.org           - Rabbi Chaim Vital
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