Volume 33: Number 40
Wed, 11 Mar 2015
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 09:45:15 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Peshat and Drash (Was: Re: Meshech Chochmah on
On Wed, Mar 04, 2015 at 11:11pm EST, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
>: In the introduction to his Mishna commentary, the Rambam states that
>: from the time of Yehoshua to the Anshay Knesses HaGedola, every Beis Din
>: maintained the decisions of the previous ones. In other words, although
>: they had the /right/ described in Mamrim 2:1 to overturn previous
>: decisions, they in fact never did so...
On Mon, Mar 09, 2015 at 5:39pm EDT, I replied:
: According to the gemara (Zevachim 61b, bot), AKhG built the mizbeiach
: in bayis sheini so that the shisin would be within and running to
: the ground under the mizbeiach. This was based on the derashah of
: "mizbach adamah".
: This is a derashah made by AKhG that would pasl the nesachim done in
: bayis rishon!
In case this exchange confused anyone, let me share a clarification RZL
and I reached off-list.
RZL meant "from the time of Yehoshua to the Anshay Knesses HaGedola" ad
velo ad bikhlal. I had read his post as ad ve'ad bikhlal -- that AKhG too
"maintained the decisions of the previous" batei din.
Therefore, my asking a question about a move by AkhG is a bit off.
RZL's point requires reading my previous example of Moavi velo Moavis
as undecided by any beis din until Boaz's, and therefore the derashah
-- while creating/buttressing a new pesaq -- was not overturning an
earlier BD.
HOWEVER, it does raise an oddity... Why would AKhG feel comfortable using
a power no one before them felt empowered to use? Were the nesachim such
a touchy issue with the rebuilding of Yiddishkeit after Galus Bavel that
it warranted special measures? And if it's because the times did warrant
special measures, did anyone use this authority since?
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org 'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org 'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l
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Message: 2
From: Arie Folger
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 12:26:55 +0100
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Question on the Megillah
I wrote:
>> According to Rav Yaakov Meidan, Achashverosh had become a puppet
>> king, and Haman was the real regent, though always on his toes,
>> knowing that the king could regain power. Haman can waltz in because
>> Achashverosh is in fact subservient to him. Not even when Esther twice
>> tries to arouse his jalousy by inviting another man to her private
lechaim,
>> does Achashverosh man up. Once she points her finger and says
>> Haman hara' hazeh, Achashverosh still doesn't act and instead leaves
>> the scene, clueless. Only once Haman providentially falls on Esther's
>> bed does Achashverosh man up.<
REMT replied
> This is an idea which has no backing whatever from the p'sukim. Haman
> did not "providentially fall on Esther's bed," and it was not finding him
> in that position that led Achashveirosh to "man up." Quite the contrary:
> the only reason he was on the bed to begin with was because he realized
> that the jig was up. The pasuk states explicitly that he fell on the bed
> "l'vakeish al nafsho . . . ki ra'a ki chal'sa alav hara'a mei'eis
> hamelech."
My reaction: Huh? What about the Midrash Chazal that Haman was pushed onto
her bed? And evidently it was not the right manner to ask for forgiveness
by ending up on her bed. Nofel has several connotations. It may indeed mean
prostrating oneself, but also simply to fall. And here it very much seems
that is what is meant. Haman omed levakesh al nafsho, and only later is
nofel, which angers the king.
--
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* Respecting, Caring for and Helping the Convert
* When a Modest Proposal is Unreasonable
* Die Gestalt von Abraham im Midrasch ? Audio-Vortr?ge-Reihe
* Warum das heilige Land in einem Krisenherd liegt
* H?rt G?tt unsere Gebete?
* Sind unsere individuelle Taten von Bedeutung?
* Is Yom Kippur More Festive; Rosch haSchanah More Awesome?
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Message: 3
From: H Lampel
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 12:05:28 -0400
Subject: [Avodah] Drashos and Mesorah (Was: Meshech Chochmah on
On Sun, Mar 08, 2015 at 2:17pm EDT, RnTK wrote:
> : I don't know exactly what the Rambam said but I'm sure he didn't
say the
> : chachamim can make up the Torah as they see fit, new in every
generation.
>
> Why not read RMH's essay?
> <http://rambam.merkaz.com/Class%204%20-%20Halbertal.pdf>
> ...So no, they can't make up Torah as they see fit, but yes, there is new
> Torah in every generation.
>
> : Certain kinds of halacha were forgotten and had to be reconstructed...
>
> The Rambam explicitly attacks this idea (tr. RMH):
> But the opinion of one who thought that also the laws wherein
there is
> disagreement are received from Moses, and that disagreement took
place
> due to an error in receiving the tradition or due to
frightfulness [s.b. forgetfulness--ZL],
> i.e., that one [disputant] is correct in his tradition and /the
second/
> errs in his tradition, or he forgot or he did not hear fr om his
> teacher all that he should have; ...Behold this...is a despicable
and very
> strange position, and it is an incorrect matter and not compatible
> to principles. And he [who holds this position] suspects people from
> whom we received the Torah and this is falsehood."
RTK is right, in the context of the "fundamental understandings"
explanations of the mitzvos she was referring to, such as ''ayin tachas
ayin.'' Read the citation above carefully. As I argue in /Dynamics of
Dispute,/ the Rambam denies that machlokess could be attributed to /one/
of the disputants having lost the mesorah and continuing to insist on
his view despite his opponent's proven maintaining of the mesorah.
/That/ is the ''despicable and very strange position... not compatible
to principles...[which] he [who holds this position] suspects [my
translation: smears] people from...whom we received the Torah...." And
that is because we would be saying that a sage would be knowingly (and
karaitically) arguing against the mesorah. The Rambam, however, does not
deny the possibility of a mitzva's details getting lost /to all/ over
time (and machlokess arising over attempts to reconstruct it, often
through finding and analysing statements from earlier sages). In Sefer
HaMitzvos, he openly cites the forgetting of thousands of mitzva-details
derived in Moshe Rabbeinu's time but /forgotten/ upon his death. As I
posted a day before, this is precisely how he explicitly explains why we
need to shofar-blow the /teruah/ three different ways. And this happens
to be at odds with the Geonic shittah that denies there was ever a
significant time the shofar was widely mis-blown. In short, contra RMH's
essay, the Rambam clearly accepted the concept that details of halachos
could be forgotten over time, and that restoring them is a function of
drashos.
> : Something as basic and straightforward as ayin tachas ayin -- monetary
> : recompense for intentional injury -- is just not the kind of law
that would
> : be forgotten. It's also not the kind of halacha that could be
changed
> : arbitrarily by the chachamim at will...
This is again precisely the Rambam's shittah. Again, as I posted
recently, the Rambam emphasizes that such fundamental understandings
were teachings received intact from Sinai. I'll repost it:
We have never found a dispute arising among the sages of any era,
from the days of Moshe to those of Rav Ashi, in which one sage would
say that on the grounds that God said, ?Ayin tachas ayin,? we blind
the eye of one who blinds the eye of his fellow and the other sage
would state that the verse merely means that he is obligated to
monetarily compensate for the loss... Such matters about all the
mitzvos are not contested, because they were all traceable back to
Moshe. It is concerning all such matters that the Rabbis stated,
?The general principles and the particulars of the entire Torah were
spoken on Sinai?...Scriptural proofs were later brought only as a
result of their search for the precise indication planted in the
verse for the explanation they had received. This is likewise the
purpose of their Scriptural proofs concerning the identity of the
hadas, their proofs that it is monetary compensation for eradicating
a limb, as well as their proofs that the daughter of a kohen who is
mentioned there is a married woman.
The Rambam blames the misunderstanding on people's confusing
(a) Drashos used to /generate/ details (that did not remain intact and,
in his words, ''were not heard about'' by the recipients, including
already those of Yehoshua's generation), which were open to dispute, and
(b) Drashos used to back up details that were known from Sinai and still
intact (chiefly for the academic purpose of finding the indications for
the oral laws that Hashem planted in the pesukim) which of course were
not open to dispute against. As mentioned, the Rambam explicitly places
''ayin tachas ayin'' in this category.
>
> ...the majority view among rishonim, which is the position RHM
> nicknamed "constitutive". Quoting RHM:
> Although less developed, the third model can be traced to the
writings
of Nachmanides and his students, the fourteenth century atalonian
scholars Yom Tov Ishbili (Ritba) and Nissim Gerondi (Ran)... [T]he
> explanation Nachmanides provides for obeying every legal ruling made
> by the court even if it says "of the right that is left and of the
> left that is right": "...Scripture, therefore, defined the law that
> we are to obey the Great Court...For it was subject to their judgment
> that He gave them the Torah, even if it appears to you to exchange
> right for left". This explanation does not recognize an a-priori
> right and left; rather, the court itself defines what is right and
> what is left. In other words, the court cannot be mistaken about
> the halakhah, because it has the privilege granted by the author,
> to constitute the very meaning of the text....
I disagree with the dichotomy set up in this thesis. The Rambam as well
characterizes the Beis Din Gadol as the Ikkar of the Torah Sheh B'ahl
Peh, demands deference to it even if one disagrees, and Mamrim 1:1)
writes ''V'aleyhen hivtiachah Torah, sheh'e'mar, al pi haTorah asher
yorucha...'' Wouldn't one find this consistent with the words quoted
above? And wouldn't one find the words above consistent with the Rambam's?
And R. Nissim Gerondi (Ran) certainly does recognize an a-priori right
and left, and for that reason is troubled by why we don't follow a Bas
Kol, and does not hold that Beis Din "creates" the truth, but merely
that for pragmatic reasons we are commanded to follow its decisions even
though there is the rare and remote possibility that they do not match
the truth. Here is what he writes in Drashos HaRan:
The criterion is the consensus of the Sages of the time. ... Behold,
[because of the Bas Kol] they saw that Rebbi Eliezer conformed to
the Truth more than they ... and yet they conducted themselves
according to their own consensus ... even though they knew that they
were agreeing to something which was the opposite of the truth
(No.5). ...This approach will satisfy those who hold that there are
no reasons behind the mitzvos at all and that they all just follow
the [arbitrary] Will of G-d .... But we do not choose this approach
We believe that everything the Torah warns us against is
[intrinsically] harmful to us, and creates a negative imprint on
our souls, even though we may not know the mechanics behind that
process. Therefore, if the consensus of the Sages is that something
is /tahor/--so what?! [If it is really /tamei/ ] won't ut harm us
and produce its natural effect, whatever it is? If all the
physicians in the world would agree that a drug that causes high
fever only causes a moderate body heat, the drug still will not
start to act on the body in accordance to the physicians' opinion!
It is the same thing with something the Torah forbade us from doing
because it is harmful to our souls: /How could the nature of that
thing change itself just because of the Sages' consensus that it is
permitted? This is impossible short of a miracle. It would there
fore seem that we preferably should follow the revelation of a
prophet or Bas Kol, which would tell us the true nature of the thing!
The Ran answers that it is crucial to avoid multiple practices, and,
besides, the Sages rarely,
if ever, come to a wrong consensus and therefore, the benefit of
uniformly obeying them far outweighs the damage done by those few
instances in which we act incorrectly at their behest. Furthermore
spiritual benefit we gain by obeying
the mitzva to listen to the Sages even when they are wrong totally
counteracts the harmful consequences of performing the other
incorrectly. ''/This is why the Torah commanded us, "You shall not turn
aside from the thing they tell you, right or left." /
...RTK:
> : Something as basic and straightforward as ayin tachas ayin -- monetary
> : recompense for intentional injury -- is just not the kind of law
that would
> : be forgotten. It's also not the kind of halacha that could be
changed
> : arbitrarily by the chachamim at will...
>
> Your assumption that every law based on derashah must be based back
> miSinai
RTK didn't say that. She qualified her statement as concerning
''Something as basic and straightforward as ayin tachas ayin -[which] is
just not the kind of law that would be forgotten..[and] also not the
kind of halacha that could be changed
arbitrarily by the chachamim at will...''
> RMB:
but [ayin tachas ayin=mammon] is called a derashah. ... Then, once you
say it is a derashah, how early was the derashah made?
RTK is avoiding the error of confusing kinds of drashos the Rambam
warned about.
And so it's not
>
> ... supported by a model of machloqes that is rare; RHM only finds
> it explicitly in Seifer haQabbalah
which indeed states (as we have it): ''Never did the sages of the
Talmud, and certainly
not the sages of the Mishnah, teach anything, however trivial, of their
own invention, except for
the enactments which were made by universal agreement in order to make a
hedge around the
Torah.'' I agree with RMH that ''Ibn Daud's view...is certainly
connected to anti Karaite polemics'' and cannot be defended on its face.
>doesn't fit the medrash the Malbim in Rus pointed us to on the
> age of "'Moavi' -- velo Mo'avis".
As indicated previously, I strongly suspect the Rambam understood this
to be a ''back-up'' kind of drasha for a Sinaitically-transmitted
understanding, not a generative drasha, despite the usual meaning of
''nischadesh.''
>
> I suggest you [re?] read RZLampel's The Dynamics of Dispute.
And I second the motion! (After all, you've already read some of it in
this post!)
Zvi Lampel
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Message: 4
From: Marty Bluke
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 16:40:50 +0200
Subject: [Avodah] Pshat in Ayin Tachas Ayin
Here is the Targum (Vayikra 24:19-20)
19: U'gvar ari yeetein muma bchavrei k'ma di avad kein yisaveid la.
20: tavra chalaf tavra, eina chalaf eina shina chalaf shina k'ma dee
yeetein muma baanasha kein yisyahev beh.
The Targum is explicit in understanding the pesukim literally.
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Message: 5
From: Zev Sero
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 10:55:00 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Pshat in Ayin Tachas Ayin
On 03/10/2015 10:40 AM, Marty Bluke wrote:
> Here is the Targum (Vayikra 24:19-20)
> 19: U'gvar ari yeetein muma bchavrei k'ma di avad kein yisaveid la.
> 20: tavra chalaf tavra, eina chalaf eina shina chalaf shina k'ma dee
> yeetein muma baanasha kein yisyahev beh.
>
> The Targum is explicit in understanding the pesukim literally.
How so? "Chalaf" is merely the translation of "tachas", and means exactly
what "tachas" means in Hebrew.
And it's interesting that the version you quote says "yisyahev", not
"yis`abed", as my chumash has it; this makes it even clearer that it means
giving, not inflicting.
--
Zev Sero I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
z...@sero.name intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
I have a right to kill him without asking questions
-- John Adams
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Message: 6
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:03:31 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] majority rule
On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 11:05:45AM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: From a shiur I heard today (summary) bt R. Avraham
:
: According to Tosafot the machloket between Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel was a
: meta-argument whether one follows the majority of people or the majority of
: brainpower.
...
: Ramban and R Hai Gaon disagree whether even within a bet din one follows
: the physical majority or else brainpower (in Hebrew the legs or the heads)
: We pasken like the Ramban that we follow a physical majority...
It is possible that Tosafos are consistent with the Ramban, as the
multiplication of debates with Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai was in the
first generation after the Sanhedrin left the lishkas hagazis. The whole
question between chokhmah and minyan may have been awoken specifically
because the shift caused uncertainty whether formal count still matters
outside the full Sanhedrin.
In any case, the Ramban would appear to be pretty strongly supported by
Chazal on "acharei rabim lehatos". What's R' Hai Gaon's counter-argument?
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
mi...@aishdas.org 'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org 'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l
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Message: 7
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:12:03 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam and Geonim on Loss of Oral Laws (Was: Re:
On Sun, Mar 08, 2015 at 01:26:19PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
: > RM Halbertal proposes that there are three basic positions on
: > plurality in halakhah:
: >
: > 1- Retrieval: All of Torah was given at Sinai, and therefore
: > machloqesin (debates) are due to forgotten information..
: >
: > He finds this opinion to be typical of many ge'onim ....
: >
: > 2- Accumulative: Torah is built analytically from what was
: > given. Therefore, machloqesin come from different minds reaching
: > different conclusions. This is the Rambam's position among
: > others.
: ... But see Hilchos Shofar 3:2, where Rambam writes that the reason
: we blow the teruah several ways is because, due to the passage of
: years and the troubles of exile, we no longer know the authentic
: way...
It's possible that the Rambam considers shofar a special case, and not
a true machloqes.
After all, we do not pasqen like one side or the other, and instead try
to follow all the opinions.
For Ashkenazim, that's rare. (Another example from the rishonim: Hanging
a mezuzah diagonally so as to be neither like a nagar if a nagar pounds
nails vertically nor if a nagar's norm is horizontal.) It became more
common in the 19th cent and since.
But in the Rambam's world? Who ever heard of following both sides of a
machloqes?
So maybe the Rambam holds that because we forgot the halakhah lemaaseh,
we keep both, but in a real machloqes, produced by two posqim inferring
different pesaqim for the same as-yet-unsettled situation, we would
hold like one or the other.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
mi...@aishdas.org which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
http://www.aishdas.org again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
Fax: (270) 514-1507 but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH
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Message: 8
From: H Lampel
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:57:22 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam and Geonim on Loss of Oral Laws (Was: Re:
On 3/10/2015 5:12 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>
> : ... But see Hilchos Shofar 3:2, where Rambam writes that the reason
> : we blow the teruah several ways is because, due to the passage of
> : years and the troubles of exile, we no longer know the authentic
> : way...
>
> It's possible that the Rambam considers shofar a special case, and not
> a true machloqes.
>
> ... in the Rambam's world? Who ever heard of following both sides of a
> machloqes?
>
> So maybe the Rambam holds that because we forgot the halakhah lemaaseh,
> we keep both, but in a real machloqes, produced by two posqim inferring
> different pesaqim for the same as-yet-unsettled situation, we would
> hold like one or the other.
It's not the Rambam's compromise. He's explaining a Gemora that began
with a machlokess and ended with a decree to blow all ways. I think if
you go through the Gemora and Rambam you'll see. In a 949 CE Responsa,
200 years before the Rambam, Rav Hai Gaon rejected that there was
forgetting involved, and explains it closer to your compromise approach,
saying R. Avahu made this pluralistic decree. But the Rambam explicitly
blames the existence of different ways to blow on the loss of the
original, only correct way.
But even putting aside whether this was a ''true machlokess,'' my point
remains that the Rambam did not hold that oral law details were immune
to loss. This Mishneh Torah passage makes that clear, as well as the
Rambam's statement in Sefer HaMitzvos Shoresh Sheyni:
[Temura 16a states] ''1,700 [details of mitzvos generated
through] kals va'chomers, gezeyra shavvos and dikdukei soferim
were /forgotten/ during the days of mourning over Moshe
Rabbeynu['s death]. Nevertheless, Osniel ben Kenaz returned them
through his pilpul...'' Now, if the forgotten ones were such,
how much many more must have been the original body [of laws
generated through these methods] from which this number was
forgotten?..Without doubt, those dinnim that they brought out
through kal vachomer and the rest of the middos were many
thousands, and these were all known during the life of Moshe
Rabbeynu, because [?] in the days of the mourning over him they
were forgotten.
Zvi Lampel
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Message: 9
From: Micha Berger
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2015 05:46:19 -0400
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rambam and Geonim on Loss of Oral Laws (Was: Re:
On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 05:57:22PM -0400, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
:> So maybe the Rambam holds that because we forgot the halakhah lemaaseh,
:> we keep both, but in a real machloqes, produced by two posqim inferring
:> different pesaqim for the same as-yet-unsettled situation, we would
:> hold like one or the other.
`
: It's not the Rambam's compromise. He's explaining a Gemora...
I didn't intend to imply the resolution is the Rambam's idea. Rather,
that the Rambam could still say that a "real" machloqes is only one in
which two sides reach different implications when going from existing law
to new law. Because this case isn't handled like a typical machloqes when
it comes to resolution lemaaseh, we have room to treat it as a special
case in theory also. More than just having room to make the suggestion;
saying that this machloqes is atypical in kind resolves the question of
why do we try to follow everyone's idea of teru'ah rather than do the
usual thing of pasqening like one or the other.
As for other forgotten halakhos... Not only is there the gemara of
Osniel ben Kenaz, but also all the "shakhechum vechazar veyasdum" of
the Galus Bavel era. There seems to be no indication the Rambam believed
any of them led to machloqes, though. Otherwise, his attack on Raavad I
(R' Avraham ibn Daud haLevi) would have been far milder. One says that
forgetting is the normal source of machloqes, and the Rambam responds
that it's "preposterous", only a mi'ut shekhiach were?
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Worrying is like a rocking chair:
mi...@aishdas.org it gives you something to do for a while,
http://www.aishdas.org but in the end it gets you nowhere.
Fax: (270) 514-1507
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Message: 10
From: Eli Turkel
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:50:52 +0200
Subject: Re: [Avodah] majority rule
> In any case, the Ramban would appear to be pretty strongly supported by
> Chazal on "acharei rabim lehatos". What's R' Hai Gaon's counter-argument?
I haven't seen R Hai Gaon inside but I assume he interprets "rabim" as
meaning brainpower.
In any case we don't pasken that way
--
Eli Turkel
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