[Avodah] Brisk

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 05:15:36PM +1100, Dr. Isaac Balbin wrote:
: The Mesora is huge in Brisk. Not sure how you discount the mimetic
: tradition? Look at the brouhaha regarding Techeiles...

Not mimeticism. RYBS and RHS use the word "mesorah" to refer to
the rishonim and acharonim who enter the room when Rav Moshe Soloveitchik
gave shiur, or the dialog down the ages RYBS experienced during his
shiurim.

To RHS, it's the flow of the pesaq. If it's mimetic at all, it's the
mimetic tradition of posqim, passwed down from mentor to apprentice.

For that matter, R' Chaim Brisker's objection to techeiles wasn't
about mimeticism. Rather, it was about halakhah having to stand
pristine, not subject to external first principles. Archeology
cannot change the din; only if halakhah would somehow prove the
identity of the chilazon would the identification have halachic
import.

(No, I don't know how this would have worked.)

But could you picture a Brisker making an argument like the AhS's
that the widespread acceptance of community eiruvin is as clear
as a bas qol that they must be permitted?

: In that matter I think R Asher Weiss made up his mind and then formed
: a Psak relying on the inauthenticity of archeology...

RYBS said he did this himself. And what about when the Rambam says
"nir'eh li"?

I would think it's the one non-controversial use of what has come to be
called "daas Torah". One would expect soeone who spent decades mastering
a topoc to have a feel for how the question is going to be answered
even before working out a line of reasoning to justify that answer --
or occasionally surprise them by showing the instinct was wrong.

But that instinct in the Brisker case isn't informed by "the masses
can't be *that* wrong". Mimeticism doesn't enter it much.

And that's why so many people now wait for a friend before saying
Vayekhulu Friday night. Or stand when saying it in Qiddush.

: Would you not say Rav Schachter pasken through the Rav's lens?

There si some similarlity, but not the same lens. You mentioned
tekheiles. That's a pretty good counter-example.

Gut Voch!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
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