[Avodah] Machlokes in Mishnayos, why?

Micha Berger via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Thu Sep 14 14:04:06 PDT 2017


On Sun, Sep 03, 2017 at 4:51pm +0300, R Marty Bluke wrote:
: There are 2 obvious questions on the Rambam (and really the Gemara):
: 1. The Beis Din Hagadol was in existence throughout the period of the
: Tannaim...

According to the Rambam, and that of the amora'im.

According to the She'iltos (and my impression, the majority opinion)
it ends one generation before the end of the amoraim, under Rav Hillel
II -- the BD that established the current calendar (+/- an argument over
a dechuyah rule).

So you might as well ask the same question about the Tosefta and
both talmuds.

: 2. Why didn't the Beis Din Hagadol resolve the disputes between Hillel and
: Shammai and their students and in fact all of the disputes in the Mishna?

To sum up:

1- I think the existence of a machloqes in the mishnah doesn't mean it
was still unresolved in th days of the mishnah.

: Why did they let Machlokes fester? ...

2- Still, we have evidence of cases where a multiplicity of norms
coexisted. And therefore I think the Rambam's position that every
machloqes was brought to sanhedrin and resolved either cannot be accepted,
or cannot be taken at face value.

a- There is strong indication (see RZL's post) that the machloqesin
Batei Hillel veShammai exploded in number after the self-expulsion from
the lishkas hagazis.

Which could be an instance of RETurkel's post:
b- The Rambam only meant a well-functioning Sanhedrin would resolve the
machloqesin that arose. And not every Sanhedrin ran as it should.

And I suggested:
c- Not every multiplicity of norms is a machloqes. There had to be
some social pressure making the variety of positions feel like multiple
Toros, rather than the halakhah not specifying the level of detail that
distinguishes between them.


And on Sun, Sep 03, 2017 at 10:44pm +0300, the other RMB wrote:
: > They *did* resolve the BH/BS disputes.   Every time they voted BH won
: > whatever was the subject of that vote, except the day BS had the majority
: > and passed their 18 gezeros.

: That does not sound like the Sanhedrin voted.  The Sanhedrin had a fixed
: group of 71 members, it did not matter how many talmidim someone had. It
: sounds like they had a vote of the Chachamim not the Sanhedrin.

When we speak of a beis din gadol mimenu bechokhmah uvminyan, we either
mean 
- number of Talmidim (see Bartenurah Edios 1:5)
- number of chakhamei hador who agreed and accepted the ruling (Tosefos YT
  sham)

So if authority comes from the number of heads beyond the 71, then that
would explain why they too got counted.

But more likely, they tried getting 71 people into the loft to vote, and
the mix of who voted was dependent on the population of who could get
there. Why such an informal beis din hagadol? I don't know. Why would
Sanhedrin meet in someone's loft to begin with? Maybe this was a time
when the Rome-sanctioned "Sanhedrin" was Sadducee controlled.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Mussar is like oil put in water,
micha at aishdas.org        eventually it will rise to the top.
http://www.aishdas.org                    - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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