[Avodah] MB vs AH

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri May 29 08:24:55 PDT 2015


R/Dr Haym Soloveitchik focused on the MB's more textualist slant vs
the AhS giving weight to shitos that were common practice. Which fits
R/DHS's thesis for that particular paper, the idea he was using that
particular comparison to illustrate. But I do not believe it's the
primary difference between them.

I already gave what I saw was the primary difference. The AhS was written
by a moreh de'asra to reflect halakhah lemaaseh. The MB was written by
a tzasiq and a gaon as a survey of later shitos that weren't available
to most people trying to learn halakhah. No focus (by the author, see
below about others) on lemaaseh.

I see this as the cause for the MB's lack of attention to halakhah as
practiced. It wasn't so much that the CC was a textualist when it comes
to pesaq, but that he wrote a book for discussing texts.

A second difference is that the AhS's idea of understanding the halakhah
is looking to see how the pesaq evolved from gemara (and Y-mi) to Rif,
Rambam, Rosh to the Tur, BY, SA, and finally to the acharonim since. The
MB is more focused on the halakhah in the acharonic period, and how
to decide amongst them.

Third, the AhS is willing to leave the halakhah fuzzy, and often comes
to a range of conclusions rather than one clear-cut pesaq. Or, he will
pasqen one way in one se'if, but in a slightly different case in a different
se'if reopen the question: ... but if you hold like...

The MB offers more clarity. An AhS fan might say that clarity is
artificial, because the reality of halakhah isn't cut and dry with
only one best pesaq for all people. But it does make it easier to
open a MB than to try to decide what to do when you reach one of
the fuzzier stretches of the AhS.

Perhaps the clarity is really is artifice, and that's why we need LORs
rather than thinking a book is our poseiq.


On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:52:06PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: Indeed in Europe before WWII the MB was not the "final" arbiter of
: halacha. Much changed when CI wrote in a letter that the MB has the
: halacha of a sanhedrin and one can't disagree with its conclusions.
: Of course CI himself disagreed with the MB...
: All to show that what is written in letters is not to be taken very
: literally...

Although it wasn't only the CI, so it's not all about taking his letter
overly literally. Rav Yaakov Kamenecki and R' Aharon Kotler called him
the "poseiq acharon", and RAK went as far as making sure the MB would
appear in photos of him.

See also our 2006 discussion <http://j.mp/1dBLsSF> Aruch Hashulchan vs.
Mishna berura
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=A#ARUCH%20HASHULCHAN%20VS%20MISHNA%20BERURA>

OTOH, R YH Henkin testified about his famous grandfather
(<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol17/v17n028.shtml#01> quoting his
own Bnei Banim vol. 2 page 31):
    AH saw the MB; see 11:22; 12:4; 28:23; 62:4; 268:6; and other places
    where he mentions Mishnah Berurah by name. In 79:11 and 319:22 and
    elsewhere he disagrees with him by name and in innumerable places
    he disagrees with him without mentioning his name: for instance,
    in 55:20 he is writing against the Mishnah Berurah and similarly
    in 370:13 -- this is obvious anyone who looks carefully. So it is a
    mitzvah to let people know that AH is not only a Sefer Halacha but
    also a response to the Mishnah Brerurah.

OTOH, similarly R [Shmuel] Yaakov Weinberg (Ner Israel) considered the
AhS the more authoritative. And minutes before my chupah (while waiting
for the paper to burn to have ashes for my head), R' Dovid Lifshitz
asked if I had one for my new home, because it was closer to halakhah
as my ancestors held. (RDL knew my family back in Suvalk.)

As for RMF, RDF and RRF both agreed that RMF gave priority to the AhS
because R' Yechiel Michl Epstein had a qehillah, and therefore the more
practiced poseiq of the two.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

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