Avodah Mailing List

Volume 14 : Number 108

Monday, April 4 2005

• fallibility of Chazal
• Re: fallibility or non fallibility of chazal
• Re: fallibility or non fallibility of chazal
• theory of evolution revisted
• Re: Races of Mankind
• answering amen to electronics
• Re: kavod hatorah
• 30 second delay
• RE: Races of Mankind
• Hasimas haTalmud - Rabbonan savorei
• Re: chasimas hatalmud
• pupiks for Pesach
• Orthodox tackle premarital sex dilemma
• Re: 30 second delay
• Re: kavod hatorah
• Tevila bizmanah
• R' Eliezer Berkovits
• Re: fallibility of chazal

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 David Glasner wrote
> Your reading of the Chazon Ish seems quite reasonable (though I don't mean
> to take sides in your discussion with RDE). However, I don't believe that
> you resolve the difficulty in the position of the Chazon Ish, because the
> whole point of Mamrim 2:1 is that, by law, the beit din ha-gadol has the
> right to uproot the p'sak of an earlier beit din ha-gadol even though the
> earlier beit din was GREATER than the later one in wisdom and numbers.
> So how can that be a "nesinas ta'am" for the Kesef Mishna's attempt
> to reconcile the Rambam's p'sak with Talmudic methodology when that
> it is gufa the point of the Rambam: the greater stature of the Tanaim
> doesn't matter for purposes of determining the halakhah based on peirush
> ha-p'sukim?

I admit that this approach does not seem to "lamdush" but the idea that
there were eras in our history where the yeridas hadoros engendered a
qualitative yerida in the profundity of klal yisroels grasp of the Torah
is not a foreign idea. Thus, Rav Chaim Volozhiner explains the Mishna
in Avos as follows: Moshe "keebail" Torah meysinai, Moshe accepted,
meaning in its entirety, with a full grasp of the Torah, but it doesn't
say and Yehoshua was "mikabel" from Moshe because Moshe's grasp of the
Torah was qualitatively greater than Yehoshua's. It therefore states
"misara leeHoshua". The word mesira implies giving although the receiver
does not receive it in its entirety. The Mishna then continues 'Yehoshua
to Zekeinim, Zekeinin to Neveim and the Neveim "misaruha" to the Anshei
Kneses Hagidola. From Yehoshua down to the AKH, the term mesira is
not used because this entire era (890 years approx.) was qualitatively
similar. But when nevua died out in the times of the AKH, we find once
again the term mesira from the Neveim to the AKH because their grasp
was qualitatively inferior to the neveim. Thus, we can say that what the
Rambam was referring to was a certain era that was qualitatively similar
in their grasp of Torah. However, if there is a profound yerida, then,
as the Chazon Ish states, "haemes cheeyaiv osam", the truth of the vastly
superior grasp of the previous generations *obligated* these great men
to accept their words unconditionally.

> Can't you hear the clanging dissonance?

It rings in my ears each time I step through my front door at home!

Best Wishes
Simcha Coffer

"They are even more confused by G-d's answer to Moshe: /You can not see
My face for man shall not see Me and live (Shemos 33:20)./ And their
confusion is doubled by G-d's subsequent remark: /And you shall see My
back; but My face shall not be seen (Shemos 33:23)."

This simile refers to a complete and unadulerated perception of G-d. To
achieve this was impossible, but G-d would allow Moshe to see Him from the
back, meaning a vague degree of perception. The distinction between these
degrees of vision is like the difference between seeing a person's face
clearly and merely glimpsing him from behind (another anthropomorphism).
Regarding the back, Rashi cites the Sages that G-d showed Moshe the
"knot of his tefillin" (Berachos 7a). The Talmud there teaches that
the parshiyos contained in G-d's tefillin, as it were, speak of the
greatness and uniqueness of the Jewish people, just as the passages in
our tefillin speak of the greatness and the uniqueness of G-d. Thus,
the concept of G-d's "tefillin" symbolizes His love for His people. The
"know of tefillin" that He showed Moshe symbolized that He wishes to
remain attached to Israel, and by showing it to Moshe, He signified His
love for him (R' Gedaliah Schorr).

"And I will cover you with My hand until I have passed (Shemos 33:22)./
When, then, the first portion of the light had passed, G-d removed from
Moshe the thing that had covered him, so that he might be able to look
at the back of the light, as Scripture says: /And I will take away My
hand and you shall see My back (Shemos 33:23)."

In a plain sense, a human being can no more survive a direct confrontation
with the glory of G-d (whatever that means), than a person's eyesight
can remain intact if he stares at the sun. Or Ha Chaim comments that
even a person who is still spiritually alive, i.e., one whose soul has
not been contaminated by the temptations of the body (anyone we know?),
cannot survive the sight of G-d's Presence.

Richard Wolberg 

On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 01:10:44PM +0000, kennethgmiller@juno.com wrote:
: R' Daniel Eidensohn quoted Emes L'Yaakov (Bereishis page 15), regarding
: astronauts on the moon: "How could the Rambam explain this since he has
: written that the moon is a spiritual entity."

: It seems to me that this "spiritual entity" has a physical manifestation,
: and this strikes me as contradictory. Are there any other "spiritual
: entities" which are visible to even the most ordinary of people?

I didn't understand this Emes laYaaqov for this very reason. The Rambam
uses the fact that mal'achim are tzuros beli chomer and therefore
non-physical to proclaim that every story in Tanakh involving a mal'akh
is a nevuah.

Obviously, therefore, while the Rambam says that the moon must have a
seichel, and perhaps not made of the same matter we are (but instead
perhaps made of a fifth element, the quint-essence), he couldn't mean
it's purely spirtual the way mal'akhim are.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 02:38:40AM +0200, Daniel Eidensohn wrote:
: I don't pretend to understand the issue, but the following sources seem to
: indicate that there the spiritual and material words are on a continuum.

The Rambam himself says as much, that even between mal'akhim there are
higher an lower planes that derive from eachother.

This is a standard feature of belief in atzilus. (I'm avoiding the word
emanation, since it implies a lack of Divine Will in creating. See,
I learn from these discussions!)

: *Kuzari (4:2-3)* [[[Glory of G-d is a fine substance by means of which
: select individuals saw G-d...

This gets us back to the discussion of the Kavod Nivrah.

:-)BBii!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             One doesn't learn mussar to be a tzaddik,
micha@aishdas.org        but to become a tzaddik.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507      

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 "Kelmar, Michael J." wrote
Subject: RE: Relationship of Science to Torah

> Actually TY's Drush Ohr Hachaim preceded Darwin by about 20 years, as
> pointed out by Rabbi Kaplan, in his essay on the age of the universe.
> S & R's point could still well be valid.

> Since someone requested humor in honor of Adar, I'll point out that
> seemingly both the Steipler zt"l and Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler shlit"a
> make the same mistake as S & R Coffer. The Steipler in his igeres (I
> think page 54 in the first chelek) seems to say the TY wrote what he
> did only in order to answer Evolution. He comes down clearly that the
> TY is not "contradicting maaseh breishis", (From the context, he clearly
> means that there is no compatibility between TY and Evolutionary theory.)
> Rabbi Tendler writes "Neither the age of the earth, the fossil finds of
> strange creatures nor the evolution of man, posed any "threat" to Torah
> truth as understood by the Tifereth Yisroel."

Actually, there is nothing mistaken about The Steipler, Rav Tendler
or my assertions. You are making a common mistake made by most
laymen. Darwin did not invent evolution. Evolutionary theory predated
Darwin significantly.

Actually, the theory has its roots in ancient Greece but was first brought
to the attention of the scientific community in the early nineteenth
century. The most thoroughly considered view of evolution was expressed
by the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in his Zoological Philosophy
printed in 1809, much before the TY wrote his thesis. If you read the TY,
it is quite apparent that evolutionary theory was alive and well at the
time of his writing. What Darwin did was supply the scientific community
with a *mechanism* for evolution.

Best Wishes
Simcha Coffer

In Avodah V14 #107 dated 4/1/2005 "Mishpachat Freedenberg"
<free@actcom.co.il> writes:

Old TK: 
>  .... It is true that Rashi says that Adam and Chava had [unmentioned]
>  daughters, and that brothers married sisters in the beginning ("Olam
>  chessed yibaneh.") However, the world seems to have become thickly
>  populated very rapidly. 

R'n Rena:  
> Why is it not possible that there were some sort of sub-humans who
> did not have the same neshamas as Adam HaRishon that were created around
> the same time....
> ...There are a number of explanations for how we find fossils of
> creatures that look semi-human [such as cro-magnon and such]; one that
> I have heard is that Hashem turned some people into apes or ape-like
> creatures as a punishment at/after the tower of Bavel incident.

I was not referring to subhumans or humanoid fossils, I was talking about
the rapid growth of the HUMAN population IN SIMPLE HISTORICAL TIME,
dating from 5765 years ago. I speculated that maybe other humans were
created in addition to Adam and Chava---not before them, but around the
same time or very soon afterwards. Fossils that we find are clearly of
different species, and are much older than 5765 years old. That is a
whole nother question altogether.

I never heard the "explanation" that Hashem turned some humans into apes
or ape-like creatures at the time of the Dor Haflagah, but it wouldn't
explain fossils that are millions of years old, anyway.

> Another thought is that if Hashem created many worlds before this one,
> why couldn't He have left some people around from a previous world to
> start things out?

I think it very likely that this is correct, that fossils /are/ left
over from previous worlds that Hashem created before this one--i.e.,
different flora and fauna, but on this same planet. But those creatures
did NOT live in the same historical time as our own species, certainly
not in the last 6000 years.

> Why does it not tell us specifically in the Torah if there were other
> people or human-like creations around?

The Torah strongly implies that even the earliest doros of Adam's children
and grandchildren lived in a populated world.

 -Toby  Katz
=============

[Micha:]
> If it were (using some other technology) does hearing the berakhah
> over the telephone constitute hearing, or is it more like the gemara's
> description of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria where it was so big
> they would use flags to let people know when to answer the chazan?

There is a R' Frand tape on the subject, i heard years ago. He quoted
some teshuvah (I dont recall whom) that explained that what to be learned
from Alexandria is that actually hearing the bracha is not neccessary,
you merely have to know that it was said at that precise time, no matter
how you obtain that information, whether it be telephone, visual aid,
or mind-reading. So, yes, IIRC, you should answer amen.

(in contrast to the opinons given so far in Avodah, that either
          1. Don't answer b/c it's not human voice being heard
          2. Alexandria is different b/c they were in the same room)

                                                MikeW

From: "Yosef Gavriel & Shoshanah M. Bechhofer" <>
> ..., the majority of eruvin
> (even those constructed by distinguished-looking rabbis with luxuriant
> white beards and resplendent frocks or bekeshes) are pasul - some of
> them "pasul l'mehadrin." ...
> There are numerous examples of these issues - even here in undzer heilige
> shtetl. Indeed, if you travel down a certain heavily-traveled highway
> in one of the boroughs of City of New York, you will see - "galui l'kol
> ho'amim" - one of the eruvin that is relied upon by thousands, if not tens
> of thousands, of yidden - pasul l'kol ha'dei'os, u'kdai bizayon vo'kotzef.

Have you, or anyone else, brought this to the attention of the rabbonim
hamachshirim, and if so have they simply decided to ignore a psul which is
"galui l'kol ho'amim" and allow of thousands, of yidden to be nichshol
in Chilul Shabbos every week?

SBA 

In a related issue R. Avraham Yosef in his program on Purim stated that
one answers amen to a beracha on radio or TV and he explictly added this
is even if there is a significant delay between the beracha and hearing
it because of the distance. He gave the example of the synagogue in
Alexandrea where they relied on flags to say amen and we assume there
was a time lag because of the flags.

 -- 
Eli Turkel

>>> I was not referring to subhumans or humanoid fossils, I was talking about
>>> the rapid growth of the HUMAN population IN SIMPLE HISTORICAL TIME,
>>> dating from 5765 years ago. I speculated that maybe other humans were
>>> created in addition to Adam and Chava---not before them, but around the
>>> same time or very soon afterwards. ...

>>> I don't see why it isn't possible.

>> Why does it not tell us specifically in the Torah if there were other
>> people ... ?

> The Torah strongly implies that even the earliest doros of Adam's children
> and grandchildren lived in a populated world.

That's not what I meant. What I meant is that the Torah tells us b'ferush
that Hashem created Adam and then Chava and then they gave birth to
Kayin and Hevel, etc...However, there is no specific mention of Hashem
creating the next 70,403 people because it wasn't important for us to
have those details.

 --Rena

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 Eli Turkel wrote
> It is well recognized

Simcha writes
> by whom?

By everyone.

RET:
> that parts of the gemara where written after Ravina
> and Rav Ashi both by Rabbonam Savorai and even as late as the geonic era.

Simcha:
> This is not true. The Rabbanan Savurai (RS) only contributed to the
> *editing* of the text of the Talmud. No additions were made after the
> chasimas hatalmud (500 C.E.). The primary function of the RS was to
> encourage the continuity of the two great amoraic battei medrash in Sura
> and Pumpedisa in Bavel (modern day Iraq). Their temporary interruption
> and subsequent reopening in (589 C.E.) marked the beginning of the Geonic
> era. Absolutely no additions were made by the Geonim as the Rambam makes
> clear in his hakdama to the Yad.

R. Gutel has an article in the latest BDD on "shitat harevaidm" He begins
by a review of the truth.
"Is there anyone who disagrees that the first sugya in kiddushin is by
rabbanom savorai (R. Sherira Gaon), Rambam (mishnah Zavim 4:6) states
that the explanation is from Rabbanan Savorai and added later. The Ritva
in Baba Meziah 3a states the gemara is from R. Yehadai Gaon !! similarly
in BM 19b. The Ritva in Ketuvot 34b quotes Ramban that the gemara is from
R. Yehusai Gaon and therefore one cannot conclude any halacha from this
sugya! Similarly the Gra to Baba Kama 12 states that the gemara is not
original but added by the geonim. (end from R. Gutel)" Similarly many
meforshim explain R. Achai in the Gemara as being R. Achai Gaon

Except for Simcha I doubt if anyone doubts that parts of the geonim were
inserted way after R. Ashi and Ravina. Just a on the simplest level the
gemara in places has debates on the meaning of what Mar bar R. Ashi meant.
Now we know that in fact between the death of R. Ashi and the leadership
of his son many years passed. If the "gemara" is not sure what Mar bar
R. Ashi meant this certainly was many years after R. Ashi. Finally the
Ravina of the hasimas hatalmud is also years after R. Ashi

In recent generations see the sefer Rabbanan Savorai ve Talmudam by
R. Levin (1937) based largely in iggeret R. sherira gaon and also
Seridei Eish (chelel 4 116-121 and 237-241) who were concerned about
who added the additions to the gemara but never doubted that there were
additions Peat hashluchan based on Gra claims that "chisurei mechsari"
implies that there was more than one version of the Mishnah. In fact in
several places the Gra explains Mishnayot according to the simple pshat
and not according to the gemara! In fact Tifferet Yisrael (Machshirin 6:3)
questions the Gra for not explaining as the gemara. Tosafot YomTov also
states (Nazir 5:5) that one can explain different than the gemara as long
as it doesn't change established halachot. In fact R. Fisher in Bet Yishai
goes further and states that if the disagreement is in a halacha but only
in the days of the mosiach it is still allowed to disagree with a gemara!!

R. Gutel continues with pages of other proofs for example the Rif paskens
(berachot 24a in Rif) according to the simple pshat of the Mishnah and
against a difficult answer of the gemara.

Being PC doesn't mean changing the facts as attested to by many rishonim
and achronim. Without going into the details of the article R. Gutel
disagrees with the approach of R. Heymann on several grounds. But he
insists that this disagreement not be based on making up facts. Everyone
!!! concedes that the gemara consists of layers. What the conclusions
are and how this should be handled educationally is a different matter
which is the heart of the article.

kol tuv,
Eli Turkel

S & R Coffer wrote:
>>that parts of the gemara where written after Ravina
>>and Rav Ashi both by Rabbonam Savorai and even as late as the geonic era.

>This is not true. The Rabbanan Savurai (RS) only contributed to the
>*editing* of the text of the Talmud. No additions were made after the
>chasimas hatalmud (500 C.E.). The primary function of the RS was to
>encourage the continuity of the two great amoraic battei medrash in Sura
>and Pumpedisa in Bavel (modern day Iraq). Their temporary interruption
>and subsequent reopening in (589 C.E.) marked the beginning of the Geonic
>era. Absolutely no additions were made by the Geonim as the Rambam makes
>clear in his hakdama to the Yad.

Encyclopedia Judaica Article on Babylonian Talmud.

"Not only are there passages in the Gemara which were introduced after
the death of R. Ashi, but even lengthy discussions were inserted by
the savoraim—the disciples of the last amoraim and their immediate
successors. Undoubtedly, the savoraim carried on the work of the final
editing of the Babylonian Talmud until about the middle of the sixth
century. Sherira Gaon mentions a R. Yose of the savoraim in whose days
the ultimate end of talmudic teaching (sof hora'ah; the same phrase
which the Talmud applies to R. Ashi and Ravina) and the conclusion of
the Talmud was achieved. (According to Sherira the first portion of
the Gemara to tractate Kiddushin is a savoraic addition). According to
Samuel b. Meir (Rashbam), R. Aha, who is often quoted in the Talmud,
was one of the savoraim (Ket. 2b; Zev. 102b and Tos. ad. loc.))."

Daniel Eidensohn

Can anyone provide sources for not permitting pupiks on Pesach?
I've discovered that they aren't available here (Israel) as kosher
l'Pesach, at least under certain hashgachot.

Thanks.
Tzvi

>No one has raised the most important issue here - that sexual relations that
>are known to occur by witnesses could be considered, in some cases, a
>marriage requiring a get to dissolve and prohibiting the woman from
>contracting a future marriage with a kohein. To encourage them to use a
>mikvah would seem to be adding to this problem by announcing that the couple
>are indeed living together as husband and wife. There would also be a danger
>of creating future mamzerim if a rav later decided that a previous
>relationship was a marriage and no get had been obtained.

If you refer to the principle of ein adam oseh be'iloso be'ilas znus.
That definitely doesn't apply to a person who has no problem having such
relationship. See SA Even Ha'ezer 33 1.

If you refer to the din of Pilegesh, presuming a pilegesh isn't reserved
for kings (see SA Even Ha'ezer 26 2), that still doesn't necessitate a
get (see Lechem Mishna Hilchos Melachim 2 3).

OTHO there are serious ramifications regarding a Pilegesh. She is for
all practical reasons regarded as an eishes ish with the exception that
she doesn't need a get.

As long as they don't formally terminate their relationship, if she has
intimate relations with someone else she is chayev misa, and he can't
go on living with her. She has to wait 3 months after they terminate
the relationship before starting a new relationship and the list goes
on and on.

Regarding future marriage to a cohen, that's in any case irrelevant for
she is considered a zona (see Beis Shmuel EH 6 s"k 119).

No question, this is disturbing development in many ways. However,
if she is a pilegesh she is not a zonah and vice versa. Beis Shmuel
is talking about muphkeres, which is presumably not the case in stable
relationships. It is also subject to machlokes as he quotes. I wonder
if the takkanoh of waiting three months applies in a case which the
chochomim could never have foreseen and included in it.

M. Levin

On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 21:45 +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
> In a related issue R. Avraham Yosef in his program on Purim stated that
> one answers amen to a beracha on radio or TV and he explictly added this
> is even if there is a significant delay between the beracha and hearing
> it because of the distance. He gave the example of the synagogue in
> Alexandrea where they relied on flags to say amen and we assume there
> was a time lag because of the flags.

really? only delay should be flag waver reacting, as speed of light
makes any other lag inconsiquential.

At 08:41 AM 4/2/2005, you wrote:
>Have you, or anyone else, brought this to the attention of the rabbonim
>hamachshirim, and if so have they simply decided to ignore a psul which is
>"galui l'kol ho'amim" and allow of thousands, of yidden to be nichshol
>in Chilul Shabbos every week?

I have not brought it to their attention.

Mutav sheyiheyu shogegin...

It is incumbent on the "consumer" of eruvin to be mevarer their kashrus.

YGB 

From: Chana Luntz <chana@KolSassoon.org.uk>
> Once benos Yisrael accepted the chumra of Rav Zeira to treat all nidos
> as zavos, there is no tevila bizmana, as nobody tracks (or is able to
> track) when they are nida and when they are (really) zava. Tevila bizmana
> would require, in addition to being "on schedule" in terms of the 11 days
> bein nida lenida, tevila after the seven days **before** shiv'a nekiim.
> The tevila **after** shiv'a nekiim would be very UNlikely to be bizmana.

I don't think anyone has that on their agenda.

Gershon
gershon.dubin@juno.com

RHM:
> [R' Eliezer Berkovits]
> wrote a very controversial book on the subject of "Lo BaShamyim He"
> where he argued that the Shulchan Aruch (our repsoitory for Torah She
> Bal Peh)  should never have been treated as binding (IIRC). Torah She
> Bal Peh by its nature, he felt, was not meant to be as final and
> unbending as the SA has become. 

Well, if you look at the SA as printed, the point becomes obvious.
RRW once put it succinctly: Ashkenazim don't like codes. Both of
the major codes were written by Sephardim (and the Baal HaTurim was a
transitional figure between Ashkenaz and Sepharad). Sephardim like codes -
Maran and the Rambam are sufficient authorities to de- termine halacha.
Ashkenazim write commentaries which modify the rulings of the SA, create
nuances between what is ikkar hadin and what is preferred, disagree with
the SA based on earlier authorities, etc.

Throughout halachic history, different groups have followed one nosei
keilim or another: some follow the Shach, some the Taz, some the Pri
Megadim, some the Magen Avraham, regionally. In this post-19th-century
world of mobility, those regional variations have largely been erased,
so we follow some kind of mishmosh of the various nosei keilim.

Rambam wrote his code on the cusp of passing from the period of Geonim to
the Rishonim. Maran wrote his code on the cusp passing from Rishonim to
Acharonim. This past century has seen more codification: R' Neuwirth, R'
Eidlitz, etc. The Sephardic cultures have been somewhat eclipsed between
centuries of suffering and the displacement to Israel and America, so
perhaps noone has arisen to write a new code. Perhaps it is needed,
though, to serve as a jumping-off point for new work in halachic
expansion. Even the Aruch HaShulchan, which looks sorta like a code,
is more of a series of essays on the development of halacha and its
implementation, not an actual code.

Although, we're seeing a development of halachic literature based on
the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch - the Piske Mishnah Berurah (anyone want to
try to resuscitate the group translation?), the other Piskei This-n-that
comparing against Sephardi psak and Chasidic psak, Misgeres Hashulchan,
She'arim Metzuyanim Behalacha, etc.

Absent the full development of halacha, which was somewhat constricted
due to the dislocations and mass deaths of the 20th century, I don't
see much choice other than becoming "karaites of the Shulchan Aruch".
It's not an ideal situation, but it may not have been avoidable. Let us
hope and work for its not becoming a permanent situation.

Shavua tov
   - jon baker    jjbaker@panix.com     <http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker> -

In a message dated 3/22/2005 10:01:48am EST, [R Eli Turkel]
<eliturkel@gmail.com> writes:
> It is well recognized that parts of the gemara where written after Ravina
> and Rav Ashi (as an aside there are several Ravina and this seems to be
> a later Ravina) both by Rabbonam Savorai and even as late as the geonic
> era. If one relies on some miraculuous siyata deshmaya then this miracle
> was not a one time occurrence but happened continuously over several
> hundred years.

> Of corse any miracles also runs afoul of "lo bashamayim hi". The Chatam
> Sofer points out that even the Sanhedrin in Lishkat haGazit was not
> infallible because of this reason.

The Talmud as a TEXT was not sealed for a long time after Rav Ashi,
and there are pasages attributed to Rav Yehudai Gaon (circa 850 CE).
But the material in the last few hundred years was basically commentary
on Amoraic material, discussions perhaps but not new statements.

Or IOW think of it this way - imagine that if Rashi lived at about 550
instead of about 1100 his comments might have been interwoven INTO the
text instead of printed in Rashi font on the side of the text. But in
NO WAY would Rashi's explanatory comments have been confused with the
Amoraic material.

Someday soon, an edition of the Bavli will be printed with the different
layers of the text in different fonts and this will be graphically
illustrated for all to see for themselves.

Later layers are often are paranthetical in nature. So when you find
an appositive style comment or a tangential question and answer whose
removal will not adversely affect the original question and final teirutz
you have found a late layer.

[Email #2. -mi]

In a message dated 3/21/2005 4:51:53pm EST, [R Gershon Seif]
<gershonseif@yahoo.com> writes:
> Your understanding suggests that at the time of chasimas hashas, all
> the conclusions were infallible through ruach hakodesh or a special
> siyata diShmaya. How about considering the following alternative
> explanation? Even if chazal were fallible, their maskanos were
> binding. That too would explain why none of the gaonim or rishonim
> challenged their conclusions. One case in point I offer is the famous
> mayseh of tanur shel achanoi. Even though the bas kol told them that R'
> Eliezer was "correct", the psak went like their "faulty" svara. I think
> this chazal shows us the authority of chazal despite the knowledge
> that even at the moment of their conclusions, they can be technically
> "wrong". The halachic process isn't concerned with absolute truth. That
> was the whole point of lo bashamayim hi. Adaraba, "truth" and the cosmic
> reality is defined by halacha. One famous example of this is that woman
> who had an ailment that was considered a treifa according to the rama
> but the mechaber paskened it wasn't a traifa. She was advised to move to
> the town of the shaagas aryeh who in that case ruled like the mechaber,
> and she lived many more years.

> There's a huge nafka mina between the way we're understanding things.
> According to my understanding, nobody ever said chazal were infallible. It
> just doesn't matter. Regarding halacha, which is an area where they told
> us how to act and is binding, we will follow them. But in an area that
> they never asked us to do something, if we find an error, it shouldn't
> upset us.

Think of this mashal

Umpires are not infallible but their rulings are nevertheless
authoritative. When an umpire ruled that an interference was actually
a home run, {IIRC during the 1996 AL playoffs between Baltimore and the
NY Yankees} it was upheld NOT because the umpire made the correct call,
rather his call was THE authoritative call.

Of course Yankee Fans such as myself realize that it was - after all -
merely a manifestation of Divine Providence to give the Yankees another
championshiop... <smile>

[Email #3. -mi]

In a message dated 3/28/2005 1:33:29pm EST, [R Simcha Coffer]
<rivkyc@sympatico.ca writes:
> This position is simply untenable. The Gemara rejects opinions all of
> the time. In fact, whenever the Gemara states "tiyuvta" twice, this is
> an indication that the shita has been rejected such as tiyuvta d'rava,
> tiyuvta. This occurs in the Gemara hundreds of times! There are many
> other examples in the Gemara that shittos were dichuyos for a variety of
> reasons. Perhaps Rav Moshe simply meant to echo Rashi's words that if a
> sevara is tenable on a certain level, we do not categorically reject it
> because the circumstance may change and the sevara may subsequently gain
> ascendancy. Alternatively, he may have meant to express the Maharal's
> approach that if the sevara has some truth to it, it has a din of
> limud hatorah and from this perspective it is eternal, although it is
> ultimately rejected.

I don't know if I understand the Maharal but this much is simple

Any rejected opinion in the Talmud STILL provides valid talmud torah when 
learning that opininion

Thus eilu 'veilu divrei Eoliim chayim means
You get schar for learning THOSE words of any side of any machlokes
BUT 
the halachah follows X over Y (e.g. Beis Hillel over Beis Shammai)
means that in practice only ONE method can be implmented.

The dichotomy is simple then
In limud torah ALL shitos generate schar limud
in practice only ONE shita is valid - at least at one time. 

Disclaimer: Sometimes you can try to be yotze kol hadi'os misafek, but
that can lead to ein l'davar sof very easily. E.G. why not lein poshas
Zachor with the permuations of every possible ksav combined with every
form of pronunciation...

[Email #4. -mi]

In a message dated 3/29/2005 8:09:24pm EST, [R Simcha Coffer]
<rivkyc@sympatico.ca> writes:
> R' Elchonon simply wants toadd that even if theoretically someone would
> come along that all would agree had the superior understanding of say,
> an amaora, he would still not be able to argue against the amoraim
> because the chosmei hatalmud had the din of a beis din haGadol.

How and when did the chosmei HaTalmud aquire the status of a Beis
Din hagadol? Did Rav Ashi confer this to the Talmud? Do post Rav Ashi
statements get the same treatment?

Is the Talmud the FIRST document to get this distinction. What about the
Mishnah which was completed by Rebbi and his Beis Din which was pretty
much a Sanhedrin?!

Is the Talmud the LAST documenment to get this distiction? How about the
Shulchan Aruch? Didn't Rav Yosef Karo receive approbation of Semichas
Moshe Rabbeinu?

Kol Tuv,
R. Rich Wolpoe
Richard_Wolpoe@alumnimail.yu.edu

**********************


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