[Avodah] rava vs abaye

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 05:50:57AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> How do we understand that the halacha follows rava vs abaye except for yaal
> kgam? Did the later amoraim review each disagreement and reach a conclusion
> in each case? Did they have a general rule (based on intellect? experience?
> lineage? Something else?) and carved out these 8 cases? (why?)

There is a postcast I highly recommend, Matmonim, given by R David Lapin
of Raanana. R Lapin has a Wikipedia entry at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lapin
(He and his brother are different people, don't let the initial "dalet"
confuse you.)

Matmonim are "buried treasures" found on the daf. Typically the podcast
involves one sugya in the gemara, a discusion of that sugya in rishonim
and/or acharonim, and a fundamental point about hashkafah or mussar --
something about how to live life -- that emerges from that dialectic.

A high point of my day. Not an exageration.

Anyway, three shiurim involve this topic (transliterations of the
Hebrew/Aramaic half of the titles mine):

Gittin 22a: The Physical and the Conceptual - Machloqes Abayei veRava beNaqvo
    baAretz veNofo beChu"L
    https://rabbilapinmatmonim.buzzsprout.com/1528778/12986974

That is the primary discussion.

The rosh pereq: R AY Kook (Ein AYa"H Berakhos, longer quote that RDL's
available at
<https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%9F_%D7%90%D7%99%D7%94_%D7%A2%D7%9C_%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%96_%D7%9B%D7%96>)
identifies Rava as one who pursued halachic concepts to the n-th degree,
Abayei was more focused on how the halakhah aided the spiritual elevation
of the person.


But the idea is further developed in the following two related shiurim:

Gittin 48b-49a: Is the Torah Rational? - R' Shim'on Darish Ta'ama deQra
    https://rabbilapinmatmonim.buzzsprout.com/1528778/13151371

Gittin 84a: I Just Can't - Al Menas sheTokhli Besar Chatzir
    https://rabbilapinmatmonim.buzzsprout.com/1528778/13361426

I took the liberty of collecting the three mar'eh meqomos sheets into
a single PDF:
https://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/Matmonim-AbayeiVeRaba.pdf

(And you realize how long Avodah has been running when you are reminded
that originally, our attachments tended to be faxes, and I named the
directory in that web address accordingly.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 When one truly looks at everyone's good side,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   others come to love him very naturally, and
Author: Widen Your Tent      he does not need even a speck of flattery.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                      - Rabbi AY Kook