[Avodah] Eretz Yisrael and the Roots of Ashkenaz

[Arie Folger]

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> The depiction of the Baalei haTosafos is not one I would embrace, though.
> You make it sound like they set out to fit the Bavli to Ashkenaz. I would
> have instead suggested that they had a tendency to assume the absence of
> a machloqes.

I agree. I don't mean to imply some conspiracy. The Bavli had become
the primary learning source, so it is natural that it would be
harmonized with practice. But a tabula rasa read of the Bavli would
not yield Minhag Ashkenaz.

> Given the belief that the Bavli has importance just because
> it is Chazal's final work and halakhah kebasrai, and the belief that
> minhag Ashkenaz can't be entirely wrong this stance is natural.

Wait, wait, hold off. The Bavli as we know it is not entirely the work
of Chazal. A significant portion of the Bavli was edited and reedited
by the Savoraim, who also wrote entire sugyos, and by Geonim, who
continued editing. The Geonim's edits were not changing any basic
thrusts of sugyos, but could still include some things that point to
Bavel rather than EY, and those were late developments. The above
comes from an analysis of various quotations of the Bavli in Gaonic
works, as well as from a comparison of different manuscripts of the
Bavli.

> Related to the question of how strongly this minimalist stance toward
> such machloqesin is justified would be the issue of how well R' Ashi,
> Ravina and the savoraim had access to the Y-mi. Not just the mesorah
> that the Y-mi is a snapshot of, or cross-fertilization by Amoraim who
> traveled between EY and Bavel, but the work iself.

Another significant question is regarding the extent of Gaonic and
Savoraic edits.

> Last, I am being careful in calling Ashk a mix of EY and Bavel

Definitely. Ashkenaz and Sefarad are both mixes, which brought EY and
Bavel closer to each other.



> If you consider how often the Rambam and the Rif disagree, that chain
> doesn't anchor him to Bavel any more than the Ashkenazim are.

Sometimes lines cross, and sometimes the Rambam, who encountered
minhag EY in Egypt, follows EY.

-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
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