[Avodah] Showering During the 9 Days

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 10:04:17PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> IIUC the Rav did Not disagree about hashkafa being important but rather
> felt that it was derived from halacha...

Well...

RYBS's hashkafah is more existential than metaphysics or theology. Meaning
(since I likely abused at least one word in that last sentence), RYBS
focused on what it is like to be an observant Jew, and not about issues
of G-d, how He runs the universe, etc...

For example, when RYBS speaks of tzimtzum, he speaks of Moshe's anavah
emulating Divine Tzimtzum. And nothing about how the world came to
be.

He has dialectics of archetypes, and all of them speak to his own
experience.


Second, those existential observations are taken as lessons from halakhah.
(As RJR said.) RYBS's term is "halachic hermeneuitics". What halakhah
says to me is a different hunt than thinking one can find the reason or
Hashem's purpose in commanding something.

>From Halakhic Mind (pp 101-102):
    ... [T]here is only a single source from which a Jewish philosophical
    weltanschauung could emerge: the objective order - the Halakha ... Out
    of the sources of Halakha, a new world view awaits formulation.

Not only ein dorshin taama diqra, but while obviously studied the
classics of hashkafah, and those who look for the nimshalim of medrash
and aggadita, that's not the basis of his own hashkafa.

It's as close as a Brisker could get to an interest in hashkafah: one
has to have halakhah come first and is the only objective truth.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 When faced with a decision ask yourself,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
Author: Widen Your Tent      at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                          - Rav Yisrael Salanter