<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/23/07, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:T613K@aol.com">T613K@aol.com</a></b> <<a href="mailto:T613K@aol.com">T613K@aol.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial;"><font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2"><div><font style="background-color: transparent;" color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color: transparent;" color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font style="background-color: transparent;" color="#000000" face="Arial" 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;" color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font style="background-color: transparent;" color="#000000" face="Arial" 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.)</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font color="#0000ff"></font></div></font><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" lang="0" size="2"><br><b>--Toby
Katz<br>=============</b></font></div></blockquote><div><br>I have a bitter fed with a colleague of mine - let's call him Rabbi ABC.<br>Regarding the issue of women and kerias Megillah Rabbi ABC posits the following:
<br><ol><li>The Tosefta in the place of a conflicting Bavli is NOTHING</li><li>The Bahag and Tosafos use the Tosefta to override the the Bavli in ARachin 3-4 that permits women to read megillah for men. [af hein hayu b'oso haneis ipmlies that like ner Hanukkah, they can do Negillah]
</li><li>Ergo Behag and Tsoafos themselves are NOT playing by the rules of Halacha themselves</li><li>And therefore they really are not doing Halachah, but playing games C"V<br></li><li>And [to add insult to insult] they are pursuing a consistently misogynist agenda
<br></li></ol></div>let's recap:<br>He claims that the Bavli trumps all and THAT is a rule of pesak:<br><ol><li>is that a fact? is the Bavli the final arbiter of pesak?<br></li><li>Or is the the decisiveness of the Bavli a matter of debate?
</li><li>are there sources to prove one side or the other? [believe me I am looking at this ll the time?</li></ol>Toby claims that R&C rabbis decide the issue first and find support in texts that suits their agenda. But Rabbi ABC posits that Behag, Toafos and many Orthodox rabbis do this frequently, too. That a decision is mad on some agenda and sources are mustered to make the argument plausible, or cogent post facto. First comes a minhag afterwards come the rationale.
<br><br>How can I answer Rabbi ABC? As a jew in need I request YOUR help!<br></div><br>Disclaimer: I do not consider Rabbi ABC an honest broker of the facts of how Halachah works. But in the interest of da mah lehashiv, I need something that can be "makheh es shinav".
<br><br><br><br>-- <br>Kol Tuv / Best Regards,<br><a href="mailto:RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com">RabbiRichWolpoe@Gmail.com</a><br>Please Visit: <br><a href="http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/">http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/</a>