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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: "Richard Wolpoe" <A
href="mailto:rabbirichwolpoe@gmail.com">rabbirichwolpoe@gmail.com</A><BR><BR><BR><BR>>I
would tend to believe the following: Halakhah - within bounds - clearly<BR>>
develops over time.<BR><BR><BR>>>Agreed. but how many right-wingers agree
to this premise?<<</FONT></DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent"
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>100% of them.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>The area of disagreement is not whether halacha underwent some historical
development -- the Gemara itself says that it did, when it describes the reasons
and circumstances under which various derabanans were promulgated.
Everyone knows that the mitzvos of Chanuka and Purim, for example, were the
products of certain historical events. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>The area of disagreement concerns the question of whether the entire
corpus of halacha is entirely man-made, subjective and random.
Right-wingers would say that only /allowable/ developments occurred over time,
and that there is a system of rules under which not all developments are
allowable. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Even when two poskim disagree on a given psak, they do not choose from an
infinite array of subjectively chosen possibilities when they arrive at their
respective decisions, but from an allowable range which is distinctly finite and
bound by known rules.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>You can play a hundred games of chess, according to the rules of chess,
and from the same initial setup you can arrive at a hundred different final
chessboard arrangements, but all of them will be derivable from the same
rules. A chess player can glance at the final chessboard and tell you
instantly that in one case, the final board was not a possible outcome of the
rules of chess and that his three-year-old must have put pieces on the
board after the game was over. (The three-year-old in my analogy is a
Reform or Conservative rabbi who isn't happy with the allowable range of
chess moves and doesn't really care how he gets to the final board as long
as he likes the way it looks.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff></FONT></FONT><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============</B></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's new at <A title="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" href="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" target="_blank">AOL.com</A> and <A title="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" href="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" target="_blank">Make AOL Your Homepage</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>