[Avodah] Existential Chazakot

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 03:21:30AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: R'H Schacter -- 1985 Shiur (Me -- R'YBS on Chazakot-What do you think)
:> "I remember after Khrushchev was in the United Nations... do you
:> have missiles in Cuba?... we don't have any missiles... so what
:> happened to the umdena of... milsa d'avidei l'igluyei?... so Rav
:> Soloveitchik said he doesn't think that umdnah applies any longer bzman
:> hazeh... If the psychology change, the din changes... tan du.... Rabbi
:> Soloveitchik... doesn't think the psychology changed ... this point
:> in psychology cannot change... if it says something in Parshat
:> Bereishit... about the creation"

Again, the problem is that is very much NOT what RYBS said when speaking
out against R' Rakman's BD. RYBS held tan du to be an example, not an
exception. RAK posted a transcript at
http://arikahn.blogspot.com/2013/03/rabbi-soloveitchik-talmud-torah-and.html

To quote where RYBS literally says the opposite:
    ... Let me add something that is very important: not only the halachos
    but also the chazakos which chachmei chazal have introduced are
    indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos,
    but even with the chazakos, for the chazakos of which chazal
    spoke rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns,
    but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth
    of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality,
    which is as changeless as the heavens above. Let us take for example
    the chazaka that I was told about: the chazaka tav l'meisiv tan du
    mil'meisiv armalo ...

I think in all these conversations all we've established is what
RYBS's opinion wavered or evolved (away from it being a general aspect
of chazaqos), and we haven't gotten anything on what anyone else
holds. Except, by implication, R' Rackman.

And if RYBS's final opinion is that there are two kinds of chazaqah
(3 really, but we're not discussing chazaqah demei'iqara altogether),
which if any other chazaqos did he hold were based on Torah statements
about unchanging aspects of human nature (or nature nature)? Or on
aspects of human nature that are unchanging without scriptural proof of
the fact?

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you're going through hell
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