[Avodah] Explanation of the Tur?

[Chana Luntz via Avodah]

RMB writes:
>I think the word "source" in your translation is misleading "Al pi
haqabalah hasherashim vehakelalos" doesn't really mean mean textual sources,
like the mishnah or QSA. This teshuvah could well mean "qabalah"
>in the same sense as a mohel or a shocheit, knowledge of practice rather
than knowledge of abstract ideas.

No problem with that, as I was trying to get across the idea that these were
not "textual" sources - how would you translate שילמדו ע"פ הקבלה השרשים
והכללותי better though, to keep the flow and that something is being taught
"al pi hakabalah"?

>However, the Maharil also touches on the topic in Shu"t Maharil haChadashos
45, #2, in a discussion of women saying Birkhas haTorah. 

These two Maharil's are such chalk and cheese, that it does seem difficult
to understand them as having been written by the same person.  Indeed the
Birchei Yosef, who seems to have only seen the first one inside, and seen
the second one referred to in other sources, particularly the Beis Yosef,(
who himself  seems to have had the second on but possibly not the first)
challenges the quotations from the second teshuva on the basis of the first,
and seems to suggest (in the politest possible way) that the Beis Yosef got
it wrong, because they just do not match.  I do not know any real way to
reconcile these two, and can only note that the two compilations of teshuvos
were compiled by different students of the Maharil .

: And then the Chofetz Chaim in his defence of Beit Ya'akov type schooling
in
: Lekutei Halachot Sotah 21  writes about what used to happen in previous
: generations:

:> But it seems that all this was dafka in the times that were prior to us
when :> each on lived in the place of his fathers and the tradition of the
fathers :> was very strong by each one to go in the way that our fathers
went and like :> it says "ask your father and he shall tell you" and in this
it was possible :> to say that one should not teach Torah and rely in their
practice on their :> upright fathers.

>Notice the CC is talking about mimetic chinukh, cultural absorbtion.

Yes and no.  "ask your father and he shall tell you" [Devarim 32:7] is the
pasuk used to justify saying "vitzivanu" on Chanukah candles [Shabbat 23a]
and other rabbinic mitzvot.  It is not exactly a mimetic pasuk, it is about
actively teaching (albeit oral).  Yes the CC is clearly talking about in the
context of the family (as boys were originally taught prior to the setting
up of schools), but it is a strange pasuk to use if he was talking purely
about mimeticism.

>Even oral, the "textual" TSBP was formal, rules and ideas, existing
rulings. An intellectual excercise, rather than an experiential one.

Agreed that there were some aspects of TSBP that was formal, rules and ideas
etc - but that is not the question.  The question is, can or does anybody
define TSBP as *only* those formal rules and ideas *without* including at
all the experiential aspect.  When the gemora cites a ma'aseh rav, is this
*not* TSBP because it would seem to be mimetic?

>I don't think he is talking about Oral Transmission in general, only when
you don't know what they did or would do in a given situation to have an
example to imitate.

The Rambam says if you recall - "Anyone who teaches his daughter Torah it is
as if he teaches her tiflut.  With regard to what are we speaking, with
Torah she baal peh but Torah she bichtav even though he should not teach her
ab initio, if he taught her it is not as though he taught her tiflut."

The Rambam does not say - "with regard to what are we speaking, with regard
to that portion of torah she ba'al peh that is formal rules and ideas,
excluding those aspects that can be taught mimetically, but that portion of
Torah she ba'al peh that can be or is taught mimetically or not necessarily
in a formal educational setting is actually absolutely fine".  

And nobody seems to understand him as saying this (because otherwise, they
could use this kind of TSBP as the subject of the brachot, or for her reward
etc), seems to suggest that nobody is differentiating between these two
types of TSBP.  And the other alternative would seem to be to write this
kind of teaching out of TSBP.  But is not a lot of TSBP, even though by no
means all of it, this kind of teaching.  Is not the gemora etc filled with
this kind of teaching?  I can't see us suggesting this is not TSBP.

: So is it possible that what the Tur was actually suggesting was that what
: the Rambam wrote was impossible, because there is no way of teaching women
: to do the mitzvot in which they are obligated without Torah sheba'al "
peh...

>True, but TSBP needn't be relayed by discussion of formal notions rather
than a how-to hands-on mimetic session. Making bread with mom, and she
noticed that mom made a berakhah on hafrashas challah this time. She may ask
why, etc... but it's not an >"education" setting.

But the Rambam doesn't say either - "but with regard to what are we
speaking, with Torah she ba'al peh taught in a formal educational setting,
but that not taught in a formal education setting is fine".  And note of
course that one cannot just observe Mum taking challa, one also needs to be
told about the correct shiur.  It is highly unlikely that anybody would
necessarily conclude, by watching week after week, exactly what the correct
shiur for taking chala and the bracha is by mere observation.  That has to
be communicated as a form of rule.  Ok a situational rule, - taught in
context, but the tradition would be lost in a generation if it was left for
every generation to guess the correct shiur by watching closely enough week
after week.

>-Micha

Regards

Chana