Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 117

Tue, 01 Apr 2008

• 1. Re: Skipping Korbanos (Micha Berger)
• 2. Re: RAYK and the end of chol (Daniel Israel)
• 3. Re: Niskatnu haDoros (Daniel Israel)
• 4. Re: R' Angel & Geirus Redux (Meir Shinnar)
• 5. Mekor of TIDE, and a kashya (Michael Makovi)
• 6. R' Berkovits = Conservative halacha?? (Michael Makovi)
• 7. Re: geirim (Michael Makovi)
• 8. Re: Skipping Korbanos (Joshua Meisner)
• 9. Fwd: driving on shabbat (Liron Kopinsky)
• 10. Re: Niskatnu haDoros (Rich, Joel)

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 09:56:31PM -0400, Joshua Meisner wrote:
: What's the connection between saying heicha kedusha and learning all
: day?  I recall hearing that the basis of the practice is that chazaras
: ha-shatz is a din of a beis hak'nesses, not of a beis hamedrash (or
: wedding hall, etc.).

1- If true Toraso Umenaso can bow out of Shema, a deOraisa, or at least
minimize Shema, why not -- by parallel -- allow a kollelnik to get back
to seder faster with a heicher qedushah?

2- I recall my father saying besheim RYBS that heicher qedushah is only
an option when there is so little time before sheqiah that the sha"tz
couldn't possibly repeat shemoneh esrei before nightfall.

Yes, this is the line at which most people say the first two berakhos
with the shat"tz before the heicher qedushah. According to RYBS, that's
the only way to do it; the notion of repeating the first two berakhos
after qedushah simply isn't in his system.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
micha@aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507

I just wanted to comment on one point you made:

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:26:30 -0600 Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 10:59:34AM IST, Rt Shoshana L. Boublil 
>wrote:
>: Can anyone honestly say, after seeing Israel export fruit and 
>:vegetables to the world, when comparing the situation here to 
what it 
>:was 120 years ago - when it was a land of swamps and desert, that 
>:something hasn't changed?
>
>(Tangent: Obviously, Agudists can. Anti-Zionists will agree 
>something changed, but they will say it's the introduction of a 
>nisayon. But the neutral non-Zionist can say that it's not a 
>fundamental change.)

Perhaps he can say that, but he doesn't have to.  Certainly, one 
could also say that the change represents the RBS"O giving us an 
opportunity, rather than atchalta dege'ulasa.  Maybe you will say 
that the latter is more RYBS style Zionisim then Agudah.  That's a 
question of labeling I'm not so interested in.  The reality is, 
though, I think that there are a large number of charedim who would 
vigorously object to reshis tzmicahs ge'ulasienu, but would also 
say that the state of Israeli agriculture is more than hard work 
and better science, it is yad HaShem.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu

On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:33:50 -0600 Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> 
wrote:
>It's not the SA that cauysed the
>change in era, it was the qualitative loss in chokhmah and mesiras
>nefesh (reishis chokhmah yir'as Hashem) that forced the writing of 
>the SA to prevent even more from being lost.

Minor quibble: by the time of the SA there writing was normative.  
So perhaps the loss associated with the changing era didn't force 
the writing of the SA, rather it forced the acceptance of the SA as 
authoritative.  Or do you have some source for saying that the 
mechaber wrote specifically out of concern for the possible loss?

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1@cornell.edu

I would suggest that anyone replying to my post about gerim read the
sources supplied to understand the issues. The issue is not, as RSB
suggested, that the authors believe that
> The work that R Meir Shinnar posted about is interesting in  its
> methodology but is premised on a view that Hilcos Gerus was essentially Lkulah
> untill social changes dictated that Poskim employ a more Machmir POV

It is closer to the position of RDE, who wrote
>This issue has been bouncing around for many years. The question is how
>to understand the lack of emphasis or concern with the full  acceptance
>of mitzvos prior to the mid 19th century.

for him, the issue is satisfied by the fact that rov major poskim (I think
he would argue all) view the lack of emphasis as essentially reflecting
social conditions of their time ( a temiha in its own right...)- but
not as a binding precedent. That doesn't settle the issue for those
who think that they can view the rishonim and gmara directly, not as
mediated by current poskim, nor does it settle for those poskim who
viewed otherwise.

The gmara and ritva mentioned by RSB are of course major sources -
but it is somewhat condesdcending to assume that those with a different
viewpoint are ignorant of such sources.

The issue is that there is a fundamental difference between a potential
convert who states up front that he rejects a mitzva - and a potential
convert who makes no such declaration. The question is the extent
to which a bet din is supposed to research a potential ger - and
tfurthermore, what happens if a bet din did not research a ger - who
ends up being non observant.

The gmara in yevamot is not dispositive here - although the examples
of gere mordechai and gere arayot would suggest that the psak of the
gmara is that they are gerim. The rambam is actuallly quite explicit
- while he requires a priori investigation of gerim, once converted,
even by a bet din that did not tell them about mitzvot, they are gerim -
and if they sin, they are a yisrael rasha rather than not being a ger..

Meir Shinnar

In The Living Hirschian Legacy (Feldheim), Rabbi Shelomo Danziger has
a wonderful essay, "Rav S. Hirsch - His Torah Im Derech Eretz [in Heb
char] Ideology"

Rabbi Danziger says something wonderful about TIDE: He raises several
kashyot, including TIDE's source. He notes that "yafe talmid torah im
derech eretz" in Avot, and other such sources, are inconclusive; Rav
Hirsch saw TIDE therein only because he already held by TIDE. The only
really strong proof is in Tanna debe Eliyahu that derech eretz kodemet
l'Torah. What is the real source?

I myself have often said that the Torah was not given to be our life;
we were given life, and the Torah tells us how to live it, but life came
first. Well, Rabbi Danziger says (I quote in full),

(note: [Heb] means that the word or phrase was originally in Hebrew
characters, and /.../ means it was in italics.)

"So, to the point. What is the mekor [Heb], the source, for TIDE
[Taf, vav, ayin, dalet, aleph]? Our simple, "lomdische" tirutz [Heb]
is: /There is no such source!/ And do you know why? Because the basis
of TIDE [Taf, vav, ayin, dalet, aleph] is /axiomatic, self-evident,/
and therefore /no source is necessary!/ The /first/, the most /primary/
fact of our existence is not that we are Jews, who have been given the
Torah. The first, the most primary fact of our existence is that we have
been given life, and have been placed in /this/ world, in /this/ century,
in /this/ living generation of fellow human beings who compromise the
society, culture and civilization of our allotted time on earth. This
is fact number one, chronologically and logically. Fact number two is
that that Hashem [Hei apostrophe] gave us the Torah to teach us how to
live in this world, in this century, in this living generation of fellow
human beings who comprise the society culture and civilization of our
allotted time on earth. These are the do's and don'ts of hte Torah, the
mitzvah aseh [Heb] and mitzvot lo ta'ase [Heb] and the hashkafot [Heb]
(the outlooks), which guide us in the use of the physical, social and
cultural raw material which comprises the worlds in which we live. First
there is life - hayim [Heb] - the physical, social and cultural raw
material - that is the great given! - And then there is the Torah - torat
hayim [Heb] - which shapes this given life, this physical, social and
cultural raw material, and tells us what to use of it and how, and what
to reject. In the process, the raw material of life becomes "Toraized"
(to coin a word) - it becomes Torah. But there must be a raw material
for the Torah to work on. The Torah is not the raw material. The raw
material is supplied by life around us, into which we were born."

"No man understood Rav Hirsch better than Rav Ya'akov Yekhiel [Heb;
Yekhiel = yud het yud aleph apostrophe] Weinberg, the Lithuanian gaon
[Heb], posek [Heb], rosh yeshiva [Heb] and academic scholar, the mechaber
[Heb] of shu"t sheridei eish [Heb]. Let me quote from an article he
wrote in the Hebrew anthology, haRav S. R. Hirsch Mishnato v'Shitato
[Heb]: haTorah hiy eifo l'da'at RSR"H ha-koach tatzar tzorah, v'ha-tzora
etzel eristo pirusha: m'hoto v'ein derech eretz ela ha-homer asher alav
po'elet haTorah [Heb]. "The Torah, then, is according to Rav Hirsch, the
force that gives /form/; and /form/, in the Aristotelian sense, means:
the essential nature of a thing (as distingusished from the matter in
which it is embodied). Derech eretz [Heb] is simply the matter on which
the Torah works.""

"You realize, of course, that in the process of answering the sixth kashya
[Heb] ("What is really the mekor [Heb], the source for TIDE [Taf, vav,
ayin, dalet, aleph]?") we have automatically answered also the third
kashya [Heb], which was that Torat hashem temimah [Heb] should not need to
be supplemented by some external culture. /There is no supplementation!/
There is only raw material, which the Torah does not supply, but which it
molds and transforms into Torah. Not supplementation, but "Toraization"
- of the given raw material!"

"If we still insist on some mekor [Heb], the closes would be the ma'amar
chazal [Heb]: kaf-vav dorot kadmah dalet-aleph et ha-torah [Heb]. The raw
material of derech eretz [Heb] precedes the Torah, chronologically and
logically. is the given raw material which the Torah must shape, model,
"Toraize" - transform into Torah into shechinah [Heb] - nearness."

So is TIDE [Taf, vav, ayin, dalet, aleph] still relevant today? [One
kashya was that TIDE applied only to 19th century Germany, not any
other derech eretz, and especially not the licentious American one.]
It's a silly question! One we understand the basic source and the basic
definition of TIDE [Taf, vav, ayin, dalet, aleph] it becomes clear
that as long as there is a world, a generation of men, a civilization -
and as long as tehre is a Torah, there is TIDE [Taf, vav, ayin, dalet,
aleph]. TIDE [Taf, vav, ayin, dalet, aleph] is as relevant today as it
has always been and always will be - ki'yemei ha-shamayim al ha-aretz
[Heb]! Because it is the plan of the Creator of the world, Who is the
notein ha-torah [Heb]. [Thus, TIDE applies to all darkei ha-aretz, not
just Rav Hirsch's own 19th century German one. And since Rav Hirsch set
it up as the eternal purpose and goal of Torah, TIDE is as permanent
and eternal as the Torah itself.]

----------


But I have a kashya: Rav Hirsch on MANY MANY MANY occasions, emphasizes
that Torah is the ikkar and derech eretz is the tofeil (his explicit
words). But if Torah is the form and derech eretz the matter, is not
Torah the tofeil and derech eretz the ikkar? And kol va-chomer if derech
eretz kadmah et ha-torah!

This needs iyun. I am thinking that **perhaps**, in some way, derech
eretz IS the ikkar, and Torah the tofeil. Imagine if I asked you for
"blue" - something, anything blue. I just want blue. Well, you can't
give me disembodied blue, so you give me a blue shtender. Now, the
shtender can exist without blue, but blue cannot exist without the
shtender. Therefore, the shtender is the ikkar and the blue is tofei -
derech eretz is the ikkar and Torah is the tofeil.

But on the other hand, I really wanted was blue. I don't care whether
it is a shtender or a pen or a book. I just want blue. It is true that
the blue could not exist without the shtender, but nevertheless, the
shtender was incidental, and the blue was the principal. Thus the blue
is the ikkar and the shtender the tofeil, the Torah is ikkar and derech
eretz is tofeil.

In other words, there are two perspectives, and Rav Hirsch gave the
second. Since Torah is the goal, it is the ikkar, even though it depends
on derech eretz and came after derech eretz, and even though derech eretz
came first and does not require Torah for its own existence. The first
perspective is that whatever came first and is independent is the ikkar,
which would make derech eretz the ikkar - true, but not Rav Hirsch's
chosen perspective.

Moreover, sof ma'aseh b'machshava techila - true, derech eretz came first
and is the foundation, but Torah is the goal, even if it comes last and
requires the foundation of derech eretz.

Moreover, we can say that there is no curriculum for derech eretz -
whatever you have, whatever you grew up with, is enough for now. Torah
you need a certain amount - ein am ha'aretz chasid. Torah there is a
curriculum and an imperative for a certain dosage. But derech eretz is
not imperative to bulk up on. Therefore, Torah is the ikkar and derech
eretz the tofeil.

Now, I am not completely happy with these solutions. I am struggling to
fit "Torah = ikkar, DE = tofeil" with "Torah = form, DE = matter", and
I am not completely satisfied with my answers. Anyone else have an answer?

[Email #2. Originally posted under "RAYK and the end of chol" but this
subject line is more accurate, IMHO. -mi]

>>> Compare Torah im Derech Eretz to Rav Kook's view of learning chol,
>>> "sanctify the chol by
>>> infusing it with kodesh". Rav Kook and Rav Hirsch say the same thing
>>> on learning chol, but in different language.
>>> Mikha'el Makovi

>> First, TIDE is built around "Yaft E-lokim leYefet". The idea human
>> being is ennobled, raised above the animal -- both in Torah and in being
>> cultured. Far from RAYK's Zionism, I have no idea how TIDE is defined when
>> not living amongst a host population of Benei Yefes defining high culture.
>> R' Micha Berger

> We still have Yafetic culture today - take a glance at Israel. What we
> need to do is Judaize it. I think Rav Berkovits is a good example of
> taking TIDE and transplanting it to Israel.
> Mikha'el Makovi

I realize my response to you was ill-conceived. Let me withdraw and
replace it:

Rabbi Shelomo Danziger in The Living Hirschian Legacy points out that
there is no mekor for TIDE, because it is axiomatic: the Torah was
given with derech eretz as the matter and Torah as the form (in the
Aristotelian sense); the derech eretz is the starting point and Torah
was given to tell us how to live and mold and shape and craft this derech
eretz and "Toraize" it (Rabbi Danziger's own personal term). Therefore,
he says, TIDE has no source, and therefore, it is not dependent on any
particular derech eretz; Rav Hirsch's was 19th century German, but TIDE
is not a hora'at sha'ah, and it does not depend on any particular derech
eretz. TIDE means for Torah to master whatever derech eretz happens to
be in vogue, and thus TIDE was already in effect at matan torah and it
will still be in effect in a million years.

Therefore, anything about Yafet is irrelevant. True, Rav Hirsch brings
Yafet as the paradigmatic source of true noble derech eretz (see end
of parshat Noach, on Yafet dwelling in the tent of Shem; see also his
essays on Chanuka), but any derech eretz will do for TIDE; Yafet is simply
the optimal and the paradigm. TIDE applied to ancient Semitic/Oriental
culture as much as to Persian culture as to Greco-Roman culture as to
Arabic culture, etc.

I still stand by Rabbi Berkovits being TIDE for Israel, however. Much
of what he says overlaps with Rav Kook's vision for how modern society
and Torah will work together in Israel.

Mikha'el Makovi

> From [Avodah] R' Angel & Geirus Redux

The topic moved to discussing Rabbi Berkovits's halachic approach,
compared to Conservative.

> He basically says that whatever we think Chazal did - we can do also.
> However even if we have the arrogance to think we fully understand what
> Chazal did and even if we chas v'shalom viewed ourselves as their equals
> - but much of what they did was obviously before the closing of the
> Talmud. How can you assert that that freedom of action still exists
> after the closing of the Talmud?
> R' Daniel Eidensohn

I would agree with you, that we have to be very careful when trying to
determine what Chazal were doing, exactly. The textual evidence (in the
Gemara) is, after all, relatively scarce and indirect.

In any case Rabbi Berkovits didn't try to emulate Chazal all the way;
he said the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch are sealed and authoritative.
But he said that if we understand what Chazal did, we can emulate them
within certain bounds, rather than being restrained by our own (faulty,
according to REB) notions of what Chazal did. Chazal's actions can inspire
us to similar but lesser acts for which we still have authority if only
we realize it.

>> What he says is that the Torah was meant to be a living evolutionary
>> code (therefore it was davka Oral and not Written), and therefore it
>> could freely evolve according to the legitimate needs of human living.
>> His Not in Heaven is full of examples he brings from the Gemara to
>> illustrate what he intends.

>> But he is of course committed to the halachic system (unlike
>> Conservative, who use disengenous pseudo-halachic solutions), and he
>> did not (or at least, he did not knowingly) import foreign values into
>> Judaism (unlike Conservative); he relied on Tanachic values, as did
>> Chazal.

>> Mikha'el Makovi

>  Having read through Not in Heaven - in particular Chapter 4 -Halacha in
>  our Time - I am having difficulty understanding how R' Berkovitz differs
>  from Reform and Conservative Judaism.
> R' Daniel Eidensohn

With Rabbi Berkovits, I said that he was committed to halacha unlike
Conservative - David Glasner in his article on Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner
(www.dorrevii.org) says that same about Rabbi Glasner (whose Oral Torah
approach had many similarities to Rabbi Berkovits's).

Anyway...

I found an interesting article from Rabbi Jakobovits in Tradition
explaining Rabbi Unterman's teshuva on saving a gentile on Shabbat (Kol
Torah, Nisan 5726). This article of Rabbi Jakobovits's was printed in
"The Sabbath in modern times", Sabbath Observance League, Manchester,
1968, and I do not know which issue of Tradition it was originally in.

We all know that we save a gentile's life on Shabbat mishum eiva,
presumably meaning that we avoid evoking the animosity and hostility
of the gentiles, and so we pragmatically save their ill. Rabbi Unterman
makes two chiddushim as explained by Rabbi Jakobovits:

1) Violating Shabbat is a denial of G-d's having created the world,
etc. and so its violation is akin to avoda zara. Therefore we understand
why the Gemara could not simply answer that Shabbat is one of the
cardinal 3 for which martrydom is mandated. The Gemara needed a drash
to permit its violation to save a life, and it was permitted so that
the one saved could keep Shabbat in the future. Therefore, violation of
Shabbat is not permitted so much for the life itself, but rather for the
Shabbat itself. Therefore, there can be no question of racism against
gentiles; even a nonobservant Jew (whether a rasha, a tinok she'nishba,
or a deaf-mute, etc.) would be subject to the prohibition of violating
Shabbat to save a gentile's life.

2) Rabbi Unterman equated mishum eiva with darkei shalom, saying that
mishum eiva does not mean animosity, but rather, a positive striving for
peace and good relations. But what does this truly mean? Herein comes
Rabbi Berkovits's approach - Rabbi Jakobovits describes Rabbi Unterman's
intent (of darkei shalom) in terms startling similar to Rabbi Berkovits's
approach. I showed the article to my Gemara rav at Machon Meir (who has
studied, among things, Not in Heaven), but did not tell him its author,
and neither did I mention Rabbi Berkovits; I gave him the article and
asked him to tell me who he thought wrote it; he said it sounded exactly
like Rabbi Berkovits, and only then did I tell him who wrote it.

Now, I am being intentionally anachronistic; Rabbis Unterman and
Jakobovits came long before Rabbi Berkovits's approach AFAIK, but
nevertheless, since Rabbi Berkovits developed the approach further,
I am calling the approach his, even though he came after. In any case,
one side is following the either side, however we arrange it.

Now, even if we don't agree with Rabbi Jakobovits that Rabbi Unterman held
like Rabbi Berkovits, we have to be able to drink a l'chayim to the hava
amina, to say that Rabbi Jakobovits himself found nothing objectionable
in Rabbi Berkovits's approach, if he used Rabbi Berkovits's approach
to explain Rabbi Unterman's approach in an article that was completely
favorable of Rabbi Unterman and had not criticisms whatsoever.

Rabbi Jakobovits writes, to suggest mishum eiva/darkei shalom is a
moral/ethical overriding factor would be "a bold and and ingenious device
of the rabbis to operate an ethical corrective in their legislation
even to the extent of overriding Biblical laws conflicting with the
principle. By averring that the Torah itself stipulates that, to be
valid, its laws must accord with "the laws of pleasantness and peace"
they would affirm that any law leading to "enmity" is automatically
suspended or modified in much the same way as a law (other than the [3]
cardinal laws) conflicting with life is set aside because it was given
"that man shall live by it" (Lev 18:5) "and not die by it" (Yoma 85b). We
have here, then, a classic example of rabbinical endeavours to adjust the
Halakha, within the framework of its own rules, to the exigencies of the
times or indeed to the demands of ethical probity. The stringent rules
of the Talmud and Shulchan Arukh, however logically sound in themselves,
did not deter the rabbis from introducing modifications by using their
Halakhic ingenuity, reinforced by their lofty concept of Torah ethics,
to explain, if not justify, the practice of Jewish physicians in violating
Shabbat for non-Jewish as well as Jewish patients. Here surely is a case
where rigidity was deliberately sacrificed in favour of flexibility in
a remarkable effort to align the letter to the spirit of Jewish law."

B'kitzur: Logically-sound Talmudic rules are overriden by ethical
imperatives themselves intrinsic to the Torah (and not borrowed from
Western society and Enlightenment values- "darkei shalom" is a Torah
value). This is EXACTLY what Rabbi Berkovits said, not more and not
less. Rabbi Jakobovits says that "This argument may be capable of further
development", and I think that perhaps Rabbi Berkovits did davka this.

If we wish to argue on the merits of Rabbi Unterman's suggestion that
mishum eiva = darkei shalom vis. a vis. violating Shabbat for a gentile,
ignoring any Rabbi Berkovits-ianism, please see my separate thread,
[Avodah] Rabbi Unterman's Teshuva to Violate Shabbat to Save a Gentile

Mikha'el Makovi

>  Someone wrote

= me ;)

>> <<Indeed - ALL gerim are not going to be able to keep all the mitzvot at
>> first - like a bar mitzvah.

>  But ain loimdim efsher m'shi efsher - the bar mitsve becomes a bar mitsveh
>  whether he's ready or not; the ger could wait
> AY & CB Walters

Good point. But the Lubavitcher Rebbe nevertheless thought that we
can learn from the ger that since he isn't knowledgeable enough to be
punctiliously observant like an FFB, but nevertheless he's converted by
the beit din, we can learn that G-d doesn't expect perfection from any
of us.

True the ger can wait, but not forever. A normal gerut is a year, perhaps
two. Even if you say three years, he's still behind an FFB bar mitzvah.

>> The problem is that some batei dinim in Israel do indeed demand more of
>> geirim than many orthodox Jews keep in practice

>  No-one objects to the fact that someone who wishes to become an American
>  citizen must do a lot more than most born Americans; he must speak English
>  (unlike native born Americans who don't have too), he must be free of
>  criminal record, he must swear to uphold the constitution etc. So why when
>  someone becomes a ger can we not expect more from him than a native?
> AY & CB Walters

You can expect more, b'vadai. But you can't be unreasonable. If we
expected better of a ger than of the average FFB, his conversion would
require at least a good 10 to 20 years to get enough text and practice
under his belt.

You teach him enough to get going, and you expect that he'll keep
learning as he goes. But you already know that he's going to slip up
many many times.

As one of the rabbis said to me when I was doing gerut, the beit din
(= Israeli Rabbinut, which I will testify, is stricter than the Meah
Shearim batei din) looks for commitment not pure knowledge. There have
been guys who failed every question the beit din asked, but they got
converted anyway because they saw he was sincere.

Mikha'el Makovi

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Micha Berger <micha@aishdas.org> wrote:
>  1- If true Toraso Umenaso can bow out of Shema, a deOraisa, or at least
>  minimize Shema, why not -- by parallel -- allow a kollelnik to get back
>  to seder faster with a heicher qedushah?

My impression was that Toraso Umenuso was only applied to R' Yehuda
bar Ilai and his colleagues, to the extent that no one nowadays could
invoke this concept to be exempted from tefillah (or any other chiyuv,
although the sevara reported by RDK regarding korbanos and the beraisa
of R' Yishmael might still make sense from a practical standpoint).

Kol Tuv,

Joshua Meisner

>RSZA paskens that if a car stops you on shabbat to ask directions
you should remind him its shabbat and then give him directions to limit
his chillul shabbat.<
That happened to me this past shabbat - except they were asking directions
to a conservative synagogue. Are you allowed to give directions there? I
feel not, even though it would result in more chillul shabbat on their
behalf - driving more, calling more on their cell phone for directions etc.
~Liron
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: Why is this "start" a requirement? Assumedly to "undo" the start of
: codification, but philosophically I've always wondered why we didn't
say
: we'll follow the rules and let the chips fall where they may (i.e.
: yiftach bdoro vs. declaring a need for a change due to yiftach)

Because one rule is that bit in Edios 1 about precedent being binding
until one finds a BD gadol mimenu bechokhmah uveminyan. Therefore, as
chokhmah is lost, codified halakhah will increase. If someone refuses to
collect it in one place, they won't prevent ossification, they will just
cause more loss, and more chumros to be safe would ensue.

The rishonim, having not been through the crisis, are greater in
chokhnmah (with perhaps a handful of exceptions). It's not the SA that
cauysed the change in era, it was the qualitative loss in chokhmah and
mesiras nefesh (reishis chokhmah yir'as Hashem) that forced the writing
of the SA to prevent even more from being lost.

-Micha

-------------------------
AIUI Gadol mimenu only applies to gzeirot, not drashot.

KT
Joel Rich
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End of Avodah Digest, Vol 25, Issue 117
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