[Avodah] Brisker Methodology

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 10:16:09AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: I'd welcome some feedback on some Brisker methodology thoughts. Brisker
: dialectics sometimes seem like Newtonian physics(more Boolean in
: nature-there are 2 dinim or two explanations and it's 100% one or the
: other), which explains a lot, but not all, the data. I wonder if a more
: quantum mechanics, less Boolean approach might explain more (but be much
: more difficult to prove).

There are other non-boolean logics to advocate.

As I've said whenever this comes up in the realm of birur, I believe
that halakhah's main focus is refining its adherents, and therefore
it deals with unknowns not probabilistically or using fuzzy sets, but
using the psychology of how people natively deal with unknowns. Which
extends to explain chazaah and qavuah seamlessly.

Something similar can be done here too.


The famous line about the difference between Brisk and Telzh is that R'
Chaim's derekh asks "Vos?" (What?) and R' Shimon asks "Fahr vos?" (Why?)

But there is another difference. R' Chaim assumes that two causes have
two effects, if there are two causes we will speak of tzvei dinim. In
contrast, R Shimon often discusses how a single din may emerge from a
hitztarfus of two causes. In the realm of metzi'us too, it is usual for
something to only happen because two or more things caused it, neither of
which could have caused it alone. (A car doesn't run over a ball unless
the ball rolled into the street AND someone was driving down it.)

People are often conflicted. Whether we mean something like a dialectic
between conflicting values, common experiences of mixed emotions, or
conflicting beliefs we draw in in different situations. (Such as the way
Hashem is in heaven -- Avinu shebashamayim -- and also also Omnipresent.
Halevai we were aware of such conflicts so that we can relate to them
on a dialectic level.)

So it would make sense for a discipline designed to refine such creatures
would have laws based on combinations of causes EVEN IN CASES where
those causes imply contradiction!

A logic that defies both the law of contradiction and the law of excluded
middle would work better than anything boolean.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The Maharal of Prague created a golem, and
micha at aishdas.org        this was a great wonder. But it is much more
http://www.aishdas.org   wonderful to transform a corporeal person into a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      "mensch"!     -Rav Yisrael Salanter