[Avodah] Another approach to Ruth's geirus

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 11:04:06PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: Yiftach was also the "godol hador", but woe is to the generation
: that has such "gedolim".

According to the article RJR pointed us to last Thu, Mesoret haTSBP
beTequfat haShofetim uviYmei Sha'ul haMelekh, by R' Daniel Yehudah
Neustadt <http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20252&pgnum=474>,
this is a machloqes between Rashi and the Rambam.

Rashi shares your identification of the Shofetim with the zeqeinim
of "Moshe qibel Torah miSinai umasruha liYhoshua, viYhoshua lizqainim".

But the Rambam does not assume the shofetim were the standard bearers
of our mesorah. Which would explain why he uses Pinechas to skip past
that whole era: Moshe, Yehoshua, Pinechas, Eli, Shemu'el...

If this is the Rambam's intent, it would fit a number of gemaros which
refer to various shofetim as amei ha'aretz. See the article.

OTOH, Tosafos's treatment of the question of how Devorah could serve as
shofetes presumes the role includes being a dayan in the halachic sense
(and then explains why Devorah is neither role model nor eis-la'asos
exception), rather than only the serarah question of her being a civil
leader.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 48th day, which is
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