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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>RMM writes:<BR>>>I believe one of RSG's Hirhurim blogs compared
Avraham's keeping the<BR>613, to a mural he (RSG) once saw of the Levi'im
singing in the Beit<BR>haMikdash wearing streimels and kaftans- how do you show
a little<BR>Chassidic boy that the avot were good frum Jews? They wore
streimels!<BR>And so how do we know Avraham was a good Jew? He was so good that
he<BR>kept the Torah before G-d even told him!<BR><BR>It's evidently very
possible that it is anachronistic and was never<BR>intended to be anything
but.<BR><BR>Now, I wonder, to what extent did Chazal realize when they were
being<BR>anachronistic? Is that they didn't care about historical accuracy,
but<BR>nevertheless knew when they were being anachronistic, or did
they<BR>genuinely lack a real historical sense b'klal? Now, since
ancient<BR>people in general were less historically critical than we
are<BR>nowadays, my question boils down to : given Chazal had less
critical<BR>historical sense than we do, to what qualitative sense was this
the<BR>case, between 0 and 100 percent of
ours.<<<BR><BR></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>I didn't see that particular blog of RGS's but I totally reject the
premise that Avraham didn't really keep the Torah at all and that Chazal "of
course" were being anachronistic when they said he did. I therefore also
reject your question -- "Did they know they were being anachronistic and went
ahead and told us stories anyway, or were they so ignorant, as all ancient
peoples were, that they had no idea of historical chronology?"
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size=2>I believe that when the Torah was given on Har Sinai it included many
laws that were already being kept by the ancient Hebrews -- the descendants of
Avraham Avinu. I believe that the Avos actually did keep the Torah -- not
in all its details and certainly not the derabbanans. but they kept basic
d'Oraisas. They rested on Shabbos, didn't eat pork or milk with meat, ate
matza on Pesach. Admittedly they didn't have the mechanism for determining
dates and Rosh Chodesh that came along later, but somehow or other they did have
months and dates. In the time of Noach we see already that there are
months and dates.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>You write that "ancient people in general were less historically
critical" thus seeming to lump Chazal in with those uncritical, naive ancient
people to whom we moderns naturally feel quite superior. We are oh so much
more intellectually sophisticated than those ancient people.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>This is not at all the proper way to look at Chazal. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Now I am not one of those who take every midrash literally -- and that's
because I don't believe they were all /meant/ to be taken literally. I
think that people who read Chazal literally in each and every instance are being
a bit naive and are actually making Chazal smaller than they were.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>In certain cases, Chazal make statements about medicine and science that
we now know to be inaccurate, but in my view Chazal never claimed that every
such statement was part of Torah in the sense of "handed down on Sinai." I
understand such statements to show that Chazal took a very positive attitude
toward the acquisition of the best of contemporary knowledge -- "Chachma bagoyim
ta'amin."</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>But we must never "cut Chazal down to size" by assuming that they were
just regular people, no smarter than us, that they were primitive, childlike,
superstitious and naive in their way of viewing the world. That is
the Conservative, not the Orthodox, way of analyzing the teachings of
Chazal.</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>Now after all this, some people might still want to make a case
that Avraham Avinu didn't "really," literally, keep the Torah. They
would then want to create some plausible lesson or paradigm that Chazal tried to
impart when they said he did. ("He kept moral laws" or "He worshipped one
G-d" or I don't know what.) My understanding is that they did mean
it literally and that Avraham did keep at least some of the laws, which he knew
about prophetically. But even those who want to come to
some non-literal understanding must not speak condescendingly
about Chazal. We are all whippersnappers in comparison to them.
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<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>Our religion depends on our accepting the authority of
Chazal. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============<BR></B><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">It's Tax Time! <A title="http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001" href="http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001" target="_blank">Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance.</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>