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

[Lisa Liel]

On 2/15/2012 12:51 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 15/02/2012 11:09 AM, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
>> Regarding the construction of the Masoretic Text, I wrote:

>>> The story (assuming I remember it correctly) is not only
>>> illogical, but with all due respect, it borders on absurd. But
>>> because it was the valid result of a legal process, it has more
>>> authority, and is followed even today.

>> R' Zev Sero asked:

>>> What's absurd about it?  They were trying to reconstruct the
>>> original text, from three independent sources, *each* of which
>>> was subject to the usual problem of ...

>> First of all, I tried to be respectful, and wrote merely that it 
>> *borders* on absurd, not that it actually *is* absurd.

> Yes, but I don't see anything even slightly absurd about it; on the
> contrary, it seems to me perfectly logical and muchrach.

<facepalm> Yes, it's logical if you think it through.  But on the 
surface, it seems kind of counter-intuitive that a check for a valid 
source would leave you with something that didn't match *any* of your 
source material exactly.  And anyway, "absurd" doesn't mean illogical or 
wrong.  It deals with apparent oddness on the surface.

> The oddity that you seem to see in the result comes from assuming that
> we're relying on the three original sefarim as our source.  That isn't
> so.  Rather, we're using them as *witnesses* to the original text, and
> like all witnesses they're not 100% reliable.

That's a good comparison.  But it doesn't do to ignore the way something 
looks on the surface, even if we know the truth underlying it.

[Email #2. -micha]

R' Micha Berger wrote:
>> So our current mesoretic text doesn't match any of the sefarim
>> they found in the azarah upon the return from Bavel.

R' Joel Rich responded:
>> I vaguely remember a shiur quoting someone as saying it was the
>> hashgacha that this result matched the original version at Sinai.

On 2/15/2012 1:37 PM, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
> Alternatively, it did NOT match the original, but rather hashgacha made
> it reflect another of the valid Shivim Panim which was appropriate for
> the latter generations. This is similar to our Sifrei Torah, which are
> not identical to Rashi's, or of other rishonim.

Are you sure that's what shivim panim means? Actual textual differences
in the Torah? I don't think that's what it means.

> I recall hearing this logic invoked in the Torah Codes discussions, when
> it was pointed out that the codes found today would not have been found
> in the ancient seforim. The retort was that these code were not relevant
> to them, and perhaps they'd have found other codes which were relevant.

Well, that's far from the only problem with the Torah Codes, as they
were eventually implemented (weird transliterations and all). But I don't
know about that excuse. Back in the 1990s (I think it was), Rabbi David
Bar Hayim and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin had a debate, during which R' Riskin
claimed that "Lo Tirtzach" applied to killing anyone, Jewish or not. He
supported his claim by reading from the Rambam's Hilchot Rotzeiach,
where he says כל הורג נפש אדם עובר בלא תעשה, שנאמר לא תרצח. R' Bar
Hayim got up and took out a copy of the Rambam based on manuscripts of
the Rambam himself and read כל הורג נפש בi אדם מישראל עובר בלא תעשה,
שנאמר לא תרצח (and you can see that girsa on the Mechon Mamre site as
well). He suggested that we'd do better going according to what the
Rambam wrote with his own hand, rather than the official version of the
Polish Catholic Church. Note, btw, that he wasn't saying it's okay to
kill non-Jews, only that it doesn't come from that pasuk. R' Riskin's
reply was that we pasken by the version in our hands. I didn't think
that was a kosher answer at the time, and I don't think the answer of
the Torah Codes folks was any better.

Lisa