[Avodah] Amora Differing with Tanna

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 11:19:30AM -0400, Zvi Lampel via Avodah wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 3:12AM Marty Bluke <marty.bluke at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Kesef Mishna there gives a much simpler answer. He says that even
>> though technically they could argue they felt that they were on a lower
>> level and therefore agreed not to argue on the Tannaim.

> How then did the Amora Rebbi Yochanan argue with the Tanna Rebbi Oshiya?

According to the KM, the question isn't "how", because it was "merely" a
convention not to be choleiq. They always had the authority for such
machloqesin to be possible.

The question is more like "why?" Why did R Yochanan violate the convention?

Part of it could be that the convention was still new, and not necessarily
taken as seriously as it would be once it was the norm for decades
or generations.

For  more complete answer, see
https://daf-yomi.com/DYItemDetails.aspx?itemId=19981
I think the idea is that R Yochanan, while a "second generation amora",
was still a talmid of Rebbe, and not really entirely amora.

Which may just be another way of saying the above -- the rule had
exceptions in the transition era. The line between tanna and amora is
blurry, not crisp.


> BTW, whereas the Kessef Mishna proposes the Amoraim agreed not to argue on
> the Tannaim, he does not say it's because they felt they were on a lower
> level. That's the Chazon Ish's proposal.

True, one could argue that the point was to enforce the authority of
the Mishnah by declaring it the summarizing text at the end of an era.

As Talmud Bavli ended the Amora'im, and the Greater SA ended the Tannaim.
But there is no marker book ending the Ge'onim, and also no convention
among Rishonim to only be chaleiq with a Ga'on if one has another Ga'on
in support.

So the convention could have been adopted as part of the process of
codification.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The true measure of a man
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   is how he treats someone
Author: Widen Your Tent      who can do him absolutely no good.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                 - Samuel Johnson