[Avodah] mimeticism

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

<<Mimeticism is Judaism as culture. Things like absorbing that "Shabbos
is coming" feeling of the erev Shabbos Jew. The pious Jew of today may
be able to work himself up emotionally on Yom Kippur, the mimetic Jew
of 100 years ago was simply terrified, without such work. (Both kinds
of religiosity have their pros and cons.)

Mimeticism evolves because culture evolves. >>

Doesn't answer my question of how mimeticism deals with new situations.
Sticking
to kitniyot by patents used cottenseed oil but knew nothing about Canola
oil or
Lecitisthin

<<Textualism is also tradition. But it's the formal tradition passed off
from rebbe to talmid. RYBS's dialog down the ages that he watched gather
around his father's table, or later, in his own shiur room. >>

Let me use this to sound off. I have a major problem with textualiism. In
some circles
it means studying a sugya and coming to a conclusion without any regard to
the outside world.
In regard to shiurim the Noda Yehuda has a question. One doesn't suddenly
change minhagim because of a question.

In recent years this doubling of shiurim has become popular because of CI.
First there is evidence that CI himself did not use his own shiur. It is
well known that some descendants of the CC don't use his kiddush cup
because it is not shiur CI.
However, there are loads of proofs that the shiur of CI is impossible.
First the 500x500 amot of the holy part of har habayit doesnt quite fit in
the walls. Even a slightly smaller shiur would hit various walls making it
impossible to walk around while various testimonies make it smaller.
There is now a new exhibition of a virtual 3D reality of walking around the
bet hamikdash. It is based on aerial photographs of the current Temple
mount and supplemented by details in the Mishna and archaeology using the
topography of the land. Theis construction places the holy har habayit on
the currently raised portion of the Temple mount. This yields an amah of
about 38cm (CI=57, CN=44-48)

Other  proofs included the length of the Siloam tunnel which is documents
in amot and can be measured. One of the strongest proofs is based on the
meitzah of the cohen gadol which could not possibly hold the shiur of CI
(note that if his hands were bigger this would redefine the amah).

As to changes over the generations olive pits from the Bar Chocba era are
the same size as today.

In spite of a preponderous evidence that the shiur of CI is way too large
almost all seforim in Israel give the amount of matzah to eat and wine to
drink based on CI (at least lechatchila).
This is textualism at the extreme in contrast to common sense
-- 
Eli Turkel
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