[Avodah] gzeira shava

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 05:32:54AM +0300, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> The whole topic of gzeira shava has been my Moby Dick. Looking at all the
> seeming cases within the talmud and trying to come up with an overarching
> theory of everything has been very challenging.

When asked in another venue, I replied, R Dov Kramer replied to me,
and this is where my thoughts are currenly up to...

RDK pointed to the Ramban on the 2nd Shoresh of Seifer haMitzvos. In
it he says that because it's normal for the same word to come up in
many places, we cannot simply make gezeiros shava on our own. They
have to come from a mesorah.

Rashi holds this was always true. And therefore writes (Sukkah 11b
"lo") that one can only use a GS that has a tradition back miSinai.

But it is possible that the Ramban is describing the position later
described by the Qin'as Soferim (also on Shoresh #2).

Which is how I initially learned the Ramban. I took him to mean that
since *today* we don't know how to distinguish between a buzzword being
used as jargon and regular word usage, we can *no longer* see the same
word used in two contexts and say that it is jargon there being used to
share implications between the two halakhos.

(There is also the pro-forma problem of only a Sanherin being able
to mandate a din based on a newly discovered derashah. See QS ad loc.)

The Ramban there also denies the permissability of considering derashos
to be invented ("vedorshim osam midaatam") -- except maybe qal vachomer.
But that doesn't mean they are necessarilky miSinai, they can also be
discovered. IOW, his iqar is that we are interpreting ("harei GS keTorah
sheleimah .. af leheavi davar mechudash"), and not *re*interpreting
the text.

This fits a model in which we lost the detail necessary to discover
derashos in the text over time during the tannaitic and early amora'ic
era. GS was simply the first. And the loss of this ability caused the
shift from midrashei halakhah mining the text for dinim (or for support
for existing shitos) to having mishnayos and analyzing Mishnah.

Perhaps this itself was the loss of knowledge R' Aqiva, R Meir and
Rebbe saw happening under Roman opression that caused them to compose
and compile the Mishnah to begin with.

But unforunately, I think that this means RJR will never catch his
great white whale. Either because it never existed (Rashi) or because
he eluded the amora'im, who were incomparably better at harpooning
than we are (Qin'as Soferim).

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 We look forward to the time
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   when the power to love
Author: Widen Your Tent      will replace the love of power.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF              - William Ewart Gladstone