[Avodah] RYBS's Talk on Hafkaas Kiddushin, Talmud Torah and Kabal as Ol Malchus Shamayim

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 06:00:12PM +0000, Kenneth Miller via Avodah wrote:
: In our discussions of this idea, that the chazaka is "an existential
: fact" and "based not upon sociological factors", there seems to be a
: general assumption that the Rav was speaking of ALL chazakos. However,
: it seems possible to me, or perhaps even likely, that he was singling
: this chazaka out as different from others.

I suggested a third possiliblity. The shiur was all about Talmud Torah and
Qabbalas Ol Malkhus Shamayim. This was a couple of off topic lines in what
was basically a complaint that RER didn't respect the halachic process
(as RYBS saw it). RAL reports that this was RYBS's primary argument
against RER's beis din; I am suggesting that this quick assertion was
an example of that argument, not an independent second reason to reject.

It fits better as an efshar lomar than an actual assertion. How do you
know you can simply repeal this chazaqah? What if it's an existential
statement about the human condition; is it, after all, mentioned in
a pasuq!

Not so much that tav lemeisav was necessarily an existential and
unchanging fact, but that it could be. That one can't simply reason in
a vacuum and buck the trend of millennia of pesaq.

But in any case, RYBS did say it belashon rabbim: "We must not tamper,
not only with the halachos, but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos
of which chazal spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral
patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very
depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality,
which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example
the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du...."

RYBS discusses tav lemeisiv as an example of a general principle not to
tamper with chazaqos. Not as a single case.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 23rd day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks and 2 days in/toward the omer.
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            stifle others?