Avodah Mailing List

Volume 27: Number 179

Wed, 29 Sep 2010

• 1. Re: Leshono Habo beYerushalayim (Ira Tick)
• 2. Re: Leshono Habo beYerushalayim (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: Re lulav waving (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: lulav waving (D&E-H Bannett)
• 5. Re: lulav waving (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Season's Greetings (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Sukka must be kosher for sleeping? (T6...@aol.com)
• 8. Re: Season's Greetings (Poppers, Michael)
• 9. Re: Sukka must be kosher for sleeping? (Micha Berger)
• 10. Sukka must be kosher for sleeping (s newman)
• 11. two hands (s newman)
• 12. Re: Sukka must be kosher for sleeping? (Zev Sero)
• 13. sleeping in a succah (Eli Turkel)
• 14. Re: Mezuzos for Nachriim (Zev Sero)
• 15. Re: two hands (Zev Sero)
• 16. Re: Mezuzos for Nachriim (Micha Berger)
• 17. Re: Sukka must be kosher for sleeping? (Micha Berger)
• 18. Re: Truth and the Rambam (Zvi Lampel)

Why isn't it obvious that, regardless of the Messianic value of a Jerusalem
which flies a Jewish flag, [as the song goes] "Yerushalayim HaB'nuyah"
refers to a Jerusalem with the Beit HaMikdash?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100927/1f9526b3/attachment-0001.htm>

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 09:53:39PM -0500, Ira Tick wrote:
: Why isn't it obvious that, regardless of the Messianic value of a Jerusalem
: which flies a Jewish flag, [as the song goes] "Yerushalayim HaB'nuyah"
: refers to a Jerusalem with the Beit HaMikdash?

At RET already noted besheim haGri"z miBrisk, "habenuyah" is a later
addition. But one could easily argue it stood implied anyway.

"Od yishamah" is actually more anachronistic. I remember once ascending
the stairs in the rova, running from the sefarim store alongside Aish
toward the serious staircase down to the plaza. It was Friday afternoon,
and little children were running down past me, tinoqos in the preschool
and young grades. And I choked up, wondering what Yirmiyahu was looking
down and saying... Did he turn to our mother Rachel and say, "See, see --
yeish sakhar lefe'ulaseikh"? How do we teitch still asking HQBH in shevah
berakhos that we should hear "bechutzos Y-m qol sason veqol simchah..."?
Y-m even boasts a hachnasas seifer Torah party van!


WRT "messianic value"... (Not capitalized, as messiah is a job, not a
name nor being used here as a title, like "King" in "King David". Notzrim
have their own AZ reason to capitalize the "M".)

Messianic Religious Zionism is not the only way one can be a Zionist based
on Yahadus. Yes, that's RAYKook and RZYK's hashkafah, and R' Herzog's too
-- he commissioned and approved "reshit tzemichat ge'ulatenu". I am given
to understand R' Alkalai and RZHKalischer were also Messianic Zionists,
but I've never seen any of their writings myself.

OTOH, R' Reines, RYBS, and ROYosef, do not tie their dati leumi beliefs
to any predictions about how the ge'ulah would come about. WRT the first
two, R' Yosef Blau has a letter in Tradition 33:2 comparing RYYR's
and RYBS's positions on Zionism. Looking at Qol Dodi Dofeiq, though,
I think that RYBS's beliefs would agree with the sentiment of "shetehe
reshit tzemichat ge'ulatenu" (although not adding prayers altogether),
as long as one expresses a baqashah, not an issue of emunah / bitachon.

See RYAmital's shitah at http://www.haretzion.org/alei/14-01rya-zion.htm
and RALichteinstein's description of RYBS's at
http://www.haretzion.org/alei/14-02ral-zionism.htm

A teaser for RYA's essay:
    Two basic attitudes towards the religious significance of the State
    of Israel are prevalent within the contemporary Orthodox community
    in Israel. The Charedi (Ultra-Orthodox) position contends that we can
    grant no religious significance to the State, and some even view the
    State as a negative phenomenon. The second position is the "messianic"
    approach, which applies to the Jewish State all the epithets with
    which Rav Kook zt"l described the State well before its establishment:
    "The foundation of God's Throne in the world, whose entire desire
    is that God shall be One and His Name shall be One." I would like
    to propose a third position regarding this critical issue.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The thought of happiness that comes from outside
mi...@aishdas.org        the person, brings him sadness. But realizing
http://www.aishdas.org   the value of one's will and the freedom brought
Fax: (270) 514-1507      by uplifting its, brings great joy. - R' Kook

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 05:31:52PM +0200, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> The siddurim of the geonim,R' Amram and R' Sa'adia and slightly later of 
> R' Shlomo ben Natan all give the same instructions.   While saying the 
> words Hodu and Ana the lulav is moved forward and then back.  While 
> saying the words laShem and Hashem the lulav is moved upwards and then  
> downwards.

> There are no six directions and no three times...

So, what's the reason for the change?

6 directions seems self evidently representing Omnipresence. Three
dimensions, each has a to and fro -- up-down, right-left, foward-back.

But three in each direction?

And given that the change removes the old minhag of upward naanuim
for sheim haShem, what did we lost?

Last, how does minhag change in Ashk, Seph AND Teimanim in similar
ways? Isn't it odd than no qehillah retained the old?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
mi...@aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l

Under the subject of lulav waving the following snuck in 
<<In the Tenach, which Rabbi M. Breuer edited (according to 
the Masorah of Ben Asher in Keter Aram Tzova), he indicated 
that hoshiah and hatzlichah should both    be read with 
penultimate stress.>>

I remember distinctly correcting this statement a few years 
ago, perhaps when Dr. Klarberg was first quoted on-list 
then.   The stress is not on the penultimate syllable! Harav 
M. Breuer indicates that both hoshi'a and hatzlicha are 
milra' as they appear in the Keter, Leningrad and other 
manuscripts.  He shows how the change of hoshi'a to mileil 
was made by the Minchat Shai because of a misunderstanding 
of the mesora.

And, by the way, as can be seen from the Keter, L, and the 
other manuscripts, both na's have a dagesh and both phrases 
have the same t'amim. Those who make both words mileil are 
following  normal Hebrew grammar rather than the t'amim of 
the Mesora. Or, perhaps, and more probably, are Ashkenazim 
who pronounce everything mileil without paying attention to 
either rules of grammar or to t'amim and Mesora.

Twice in the last few days I've had to take on the burden of 
repeating a subject on which I posted a few years.  Are 
there new people on Avodah or are there so many list members 
whose memories have deteriorated even more than mine? As tol 
the quote from Dr.Klarberg, I wonder if he accidently wrote 
penultimate or if the one who quoted him made the error.  As 
to nna, mention was made of Art Scroll changing the dageshim 
of previous editions of the siddur.  Could someone tell me 
if Art Scroll has it right. I hope not because that would 
ruin my day and make v'samachta b'chagekha a bit difficult 
for me.


Hag Sameach, or, as I said when I was a kid, Have a joyous 
Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly.


David 

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 12:55:14PM +0200, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
>                                         Are there new people on Avodah or 
> are there so many list members whose memories have deteriorated even more 
> than mine? As tol the quote from Dr.Klarberg, I wonder if he accidently 
> wrote penultimate or if the one who quoted him made the error...

It's my memory. However, it's a cut-n-paste from a web page with his
name on top. The only middle-man to blame is a possible editor.

>                                                                 As to 
> nna, mention was made of Art Scroll changing the dageshim of previous 
> editions of the siddur.  Could someone tell me if Art Scroll has it 
> right....

On chol and ch"m I use a siddur that has all quotes from Tanakh in
compliance with the keter, so I had to go get an ArtScroll. The Yitzchak
Yair (red, Hebrew only, Ashkenaz siddur for year-round) edition has
    Anna H' hoSHIA'ah nna
    Anna H' hatzliCHAH na
The capitalization is an attempt to illustrate that there is a meteg
under the shin in "hoshi'ah" but hatzlichah is left to the default
milera. And only the first "nna" is degushah.

I was referring to a different edition in which I saw both phrases take
a non-dagush "na". But we already established the quality of my memory.

> Hag Sameach, or, as I said when I was a kid, Have a joyous Eighth Day of 
> Solemn Assembly.

"Atzeres" implies solemnity?

In any case:
Have a joyous Eighth Day, the Solemn Assembly of Sukkos!
(Rama OC 668:1)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When a king dies, his power ends,
mi...@aishdas.org        but when a prophet dies, his influence is just
http://www.aishdas.org   beginning.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                    - Soren Kierkegaard

Earlier I wrote on list that "Gemar chasimah tovah" apparently assumes
like the author of Unesaneh Toqef, who for some reason doesn't make
these distinctions -- beRH yeikaseivu uveYom Tzom Kippur yeichaseimun
for everybody. Look at the next line, what's being discussed isn't myself
or beinonim in particular, it's "kamah yaavrun vekamah yibarei'un", etc...

(Tangent: Unesaneh Toqef was found among the earlier documents in the
Cairo geniza. It has to be older than R' Amnon of Mainz appearing to R'
Klonymus ben Meshulam in the famous dream. Possibly by Yannai.)

RMPoppers asked me off-list how the author could contradict a maamar
chazal. Thinking out loud...

If you look at the Rambam's (eg) definition of beinoni, no one would
qualify. Who is EXACTLY balanced between mitzvos and aveiros?

So clearly the category is broader than exact balance.

It's possible the paytan took the far extreme -- that unless someone
is MRAH or one of the poeple individually named in the mishnah in pereq
Cheileq as lacking olam haba, they are beinonim WRT the time of chasimah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
mi...@aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
Fax: (270) 514-1507

 
 
From: Ben Waxman _ben1...@zahav.net.il_ (mailto:ben1...@zahav.net.il) 

>>  Someone told me that he heard a "svara shiyur" in which the rav said 
that it  could be that if a sukka is not suitable for sleeping in, then it 
isn't kosher  for eating in. For example, if a sukka is mosquito infected and 
you can't sleep  in it, then you shouldn't eat in it.

Anyone hear anything like this  halacha l'ma'aseh?<<
 
 
 
>>>>>
 
 
If you can physically fit into a small sukah and there is  just enough room 
for one person to sit, is it still a kosher sukah --  even though there is 
not enough room to lie down in it?  
 
Would sleeping with your head in the sukah and your feet outside count as  
"sleeping in the sukah"?  Somehow, I don't think so.
 
Maybe relevant, maybe not:  I notice that my Lub neighbors will eat in  the 
sukah even when it's pouring rain -- when to me it seems a shailah if you  
would be allowed to make a bracha "leshev basukah" and there's no mitzva at 
all  -- yet they will not sleep in the sukah.  They seem to be following a  
different custom or different rules than everyone else, but based on what?
 

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





--------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100928/c9c780b7/attachment-0001.htm>

In Avodah V27n178#16, R'Micha responded to me:
> We aren't judging Re'uvein, whose intent is obvious and who is just
using common coinage.
> We are judging the coinage and finding it wanting. <
As I already noted, I find "g'mar chasimah tovah" wanting, too, as wishing
it after Rosh haShanah implies that the wisher doesn't consider the wishee
a tzaddiq whose chasimah l'chayyim occurred on RhSh.  If the intent is
l'tovah, "g'mar tov" is Tov...and to all who've been reading this
back&forth, tavo aleichem b'rachah :). 

Gut Moeid/Moadim l'Simcha! and all the best from 
-- Michael Poppers via BB pager

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 08:00:25AM -0400, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: If you can physically fit into a small sukah and there is  just enough room 
: for one person to sit, is it still a kosher sukah --  even though there is 
: not enough room to lie down in it?  

They sell pop-up and other phone-booth shaped sukkos, with hechsheirim.
Beis Hillel holds rosho verubbo.

: Would sleeping with your head in the sukah and your feet outside count as  
: "sleeping in the sukah"?  Somehow, I don't think so.

But I think you're blurring cheftzah and gavra. A sukkah can be kosher if
it's large enough to hold me. That's different than whether I satisfied
the requirement of entering the sukkah.

: Maybe relevant, maybe not:  I notice that my Lub neighbors will eat in  the 
: sukah even when it's pouring rain -- when to me it seems a shailah if you  
: would be allowed to make a bracha "leshev basukah" and there's no mitzva at 
: all...

Ashk make berakhos on minhagim. So, if they feel it's a bonofide minhag,
not just a hanhagah tovah...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When we are no longer able to change a situation
mi...@aishdas.org        -- just think of an incurable disease such as
http://www.aishdas.org   inoperable cancer -- we are challenged to change
Fax: (270) 514-1507      ourselves.      - Victor Frankl (MSfM)

an interesting application would be chabad sukkas.  since chassidim are as i
understand , not to sleep there under any circumstances , is that a
non-halachic-minhag overlay that doesn't abrogate this halacha; or, is the
sleeping issur so strong as to make that not a function of a sukka
lechatchila , and therefore irrelevant to the kashrus of the sukka....

saul newman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100928/162d766b/attachment-0001.htm>

one of the yeshivas  had sent a fundraiser item a hoshana  'arm sleeve'   to
allow one  to be able to hold  the 4 minim with -two- hands while  circling
. it seems that the velt is not makpid on this  issue, as most people seem
to have siddur in one hand  and  daled minim in -one- hand only....  i have
tried to note in pictures of gdolim during hoshanas , as to their grip
technique.....


saul  newman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20100928/b0ff01f3/attachment-0001.htm>

On 28/09/2010 10:00 PM, T6...@aol.com wrote:

> Maybe relevant, maybe not: I notice that my Lub neighbors will eat in
> the sukah even when it's pouring rain -- when to me it seems a shailah
> if you would be allowed to make a bracha "leshev basukah" and there's
> no mitzva at all -- yet they will not sleep in the sukah. They seem to
> be following a different custom or different rules than everyone else,
> but based on what?

When it's raining, it's possible not only to force yourself to eat in
the sukkah anyway, but also to force yourself to *like* doing so, and
to be *happy* while doing so.  Once you are happy, and therefore no
longer mitzta'er, you are obligated to eat in the sukkah, and can say
the bracha.  When it comes to sleep, however, if you can't sleep then
no amount of psyching yourself will change that.  No matter how much
you focus on the mitzvah and the simcha or whatever, if you can't sleep
then you can't sleep.

It's like the saying about mesirut nefesh: with sufficient ms"n, you can
jump down from the roof; but no amount of ms"n will enable you to jump up
to the roof.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher

<<Someone told me that he heard a "svara shiyur" in which the rav said
that it could be that if a sukka is not suitable for sleeping in, then
it isn't kosher for eating in. For example, if a sukka is mosquito
infected and you can't sleep in it, then you shouldn't eat in it.>>

I assume a succah big enough to put your head and most of your body in
would not be too suitable for sleeping

BTW a discussion in our shul was on the definition of "mitzaer"
is a hot day (80 how about 90 or maybe 100+) a reason to eat in the
home. On the first day could one eat a kezayit in the succah and continue inside
(with AC).
IF it is bee or mosquito infected (the whole neighborhood) perhaps one should
be patur from succah at least after the first day

I was told that if it is hot in the afternoon then one can sleep in ones
air-conditioned bedroom

-- 
Eli Turkel

Either way it's not possible that Rebbi sent the mezuzah to Artevan
to prevent eivah.  Artevan did not request a mezuzah, and was taken
aback when he received it.  If there were a worry about eivah, then
sending it would have been foolhardy; who was to say that he'd bother
to ask Rebbi for an explanation, rather than immediately jumping to
the conclusion that he'd been disrespected, and even if he were sure
to ask, who was to say that he'd accept the answer?  Surely it would
have been far easier and more appropriate for Rebbi to have sent him
a normal, expensive gift, which he could well afford since he was
noted for his wealth, and which would be far more likely to generate
goodwill for the Jews in Ardevan's kingom.  It's therefore clear that
Rebbi expected only a good response to his gift, albeit a puzzled one.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher

On 29/09/2010 12:45 AM, s newman wrote:
> one of the yeshivas  had sent a fundraiser item a hoshana 'arm sleeve'
> to allow one  to be able to hold  the 4 minim with -two- hands while
> circling . it seems that the velt is not makpid on this  issue, as most
> people seem to have siddur in one hand  and  daled minim in -one- hand
> only....  i have tried to note in pictures of gdolim during hoshanas ,
> as to their grip technique.....

I think most of the "velt" are simply not aware of the halacha, and it
never occurs to them that there's a problem.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
z...@sero.name                 eventually run out of other people?s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 03:21:08AM +1000, Zev Sero wrote:
> Either way it's not possible that Rebbi sent the mezuzah to Artevan
> to prevent eivah.  Artevan did not request a mezuzah, and was taken
> aback when he received it...

I think this response rules out someone who would assume the best of
a friend.

>                                       who was to say that he'd bother
> to ask Rebbi for an explanation, rather than immediately jumping to
> the conclusion that he'd been disrespected, and even if he were sure
> to ask, who was to say that he'd accept the answer?

I saw the whole thing as an excercise to drill home the message: If you
wish Divine Aid for the Parthians, cut the Jews some slack.

Which they did -- shortly thereafter, we re-establish the role of
reish gelusah with R' Huna.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
mi...@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 03:10:58AM +1000, Zev Sero wrote:
> When it's raining, it's possible not only to force yourself to eat in
> the sukkah anyway, but also to force yourself to *like* doing so, and
> to be *happy* while doing so...

How do you force yourself to like something and to be happy doing
it?

I would think such a transition takes extended conscious effort,
not something you can just force.

This is the whole question of how HQBH can require "lo sachmod".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 02:46:24PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote [not really,
RZL only quotes RAF quoting myself -micha]:
: RMB wrote:
:> If we buy into the Rambam's model of what halakhah is
:> -- which, again, has Aristotelian foundation -- not only
:> did the chassidim bend the halachic process into a
:> pretzel, there are NO observant Jews today. And thus
:> the contrapositive, if we accept the halachic process as
:> practiced by Acharonim and arguably most Rishonim,
:> then what do we do with what the Rambam describes?

On 9/13/2010 5:02 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> [I]n the Rambam's perspective...[t]he goal of life is to apprehend the 
> Truth....

> In all this he is very Aristotilian. ...[a]nd so, I find it unsurprising 
> to assume the Rambam views pesaq as a pursuit of truth rather than as a 
> legal process.

Thank you Micha for cc-ing me this post. If I understand you correctly,
you are suggesting the following:

(1) The Rambam, in explaining talmudic texts and poskening therefrom,
originally practiced in principle a "legal-process approach"
of uncritically following the Geonim's decisions and explanations
of talmudic passages. Rashi and all other familiar commentators also
followed this principle:

(2) However, between writing the Payrush HaMishnayos and writing the
Mishneh Torah, in his unique Aristotelian-influenced pursuit to reach
a one-and-only-one truth about things, he developed a new principle
of independent analysis of the talmudic texts, to determine their
one-and-only original intent, and at times found himself at odds with
what the Geonim said.

I seriously question this. The Rambam did not say he formerly held in
principle to ignore original intent in favor of some legal process. I
only see that he regretted a former lack of sufficiently testing the
Geonim's interpretations against the text to which they were applied.

Rashi, too, many times differs with his predecessors' interpretations,
based upon analysis of the original text. There is, for example, the
famous Rashi that differs with his teacher regarding the status of a law 
(whether it's d'oraiisa vs. d'rabannan)derived through a gezeyra shavva. 
To say that Rashi is more prone than Rambam to uncritically accepting 
earlier interpretations would require a great amount of study.

You wrote, "As I already cited from the two igeros RMShapiro translated 
... the Rambam consciously chose to understand the gemara as it read to 
him, and abandoned his previous approach, which he credits to his 
predecessors as well, of reading the gemara through the prism of the 
Geonim...."

However, I cannot find anywhere in these iggeros the Rambam attributing 
to others uncritical reading of the Gemora through the eyes of the 
Geonim. (I have the Mosaad HaRav Kook Rav Sheilat edition.) I see no 
indication from the Rambam's writings that he thought that previous 
poskim were any less focused than he was on the goal of determining what 
a talmudic passage's original intent was. As far as I can see, and as I 
would naturally think, the other poskim and commentators who came before 
and after the Rambam, in agreeing to the Geonim's interpretation of the 
contra Rambam's, held that the Geonim's take was indeed the original 
intent of the Gemora. They did not hold that there is a principle of 
"legal process" that discounts original intent.

I have a wonderful resource, the sefer "HaMachlokess BaHalacha" (Inst. 
Of Jewish Law, Boston U. School of Law and The Israeli Diaspora Inst.), 
which on pages 294 ff. quotes Rishonim in addition to the Rambam who 
maintain that those qualified with sufficient learning and stature were 
not bound by the commentaries or pesak of the Geonim when the source 
texts do not bear them out. These include the Sefer HaMaor, Hakdama (R. 
Zerachia HaLevy b. Yitzchak), HaMaspik L'Ovdei Hashem (R. Avraham ben 
HaRambam, 2:25, p. 176), Shu"T HaRashba 2:322 (note his qualification), 
the Rosh (Sanhedrin 4, siman 6; HaSh'eilos u'Teshuvos, 55:9), Meiri 
(Besi HaBechira, Bava Basra 130b, Sanhedrin 33a) Shu"T HaRyd 1, pp. 6-7; 
62) Shu"T HaRAm, 76), Shu"T Avkas Rochale R. Yosef Karo, 155, Sht"T Beis 
Yosef (Din Mayyim She'ain lahem sof, 1 [pp. 343-344]) Yam Shel Shlomo 
(R. Shlomo Luria, BK 141, Hakdama and BK 2, siman 5), HaGahos HaRama 
(Choshen Mishpat 25:1)--and I am only listing those Rishonim explicitly 
addressing differing with bona fide Geonim; still others deal with the 
broader issue of later Rishonim and Acharonim differing with earlier and 
greater Rishonim.

I therefore question the entire endeavor of distributing Rishonim into 
pigeon-holes of more or less obsequience to the Geonim. My understanding 
is that they are all each determined to find the original intent of the 
discussants in the talmudic texts, utilizing the learning of the Geonim 
as a major, but not exclusive, factor in doing so, working on a 
case-by-case basis.

For me to accept the extraordinary claim otherwise, you would have to 
show me where a rishon says, "We don't care about the truth; we are only 
interested in the formality of uncritically following the Geonim's 
conclusions." I only see indications that they were intensely concerned 
with the original intent of the gemora's passages.(I trust you do not 
accept a unique twist of the futile approach some use with the Rambam, 
and suggest that the Rishonim spoke esoterically and with a wink, not 
really meaning what they said.) All I can see is that when they did 
follow the Geonim's decisions, it was with the conviction that this was 
a means of determining the truth.

You also wrote:
> Similarly, there are numerous cases in which Rashi explains the mishnah
> as understood by the gemara, even if it's not the most straightforward
> read, whereas the Rambam explains the mishnah kipeshuto. (Rashi fits the
> mishnah to the gemara, the Rambam is more likely to fit the gemara to
> the mishnah.) One example we discussed here in the past is chatzi nezeq
> tzeroros .... where the Rambam is willing to place his dochaq -- on the 
> interpreter, not the primary source.

When I called attention to the different takes in the "chatzi nezek
tsruros" sugya Rambam and Rashi have on the relationship of the Gemora
to the Mishnah, I said that whereas Rashi understands the Mishna in
light of the Gemora, Rambam understands the Gemora in light of the
Mishna. But I see no reason to deny the natural default assumption that
both Rashi and the Rambam believed that their takes represented what
the Gemora understands to be the genuine original intent of the Mishnah.
Their methodologies differed in how we are to understand what the Gemora
meant to say the Mishna's original intent was---influenced by whether
we are to bend the otherwise apparent meaning of Mishnah's words to
conform to the Gemora's otherwise apparent meaning, or vice versa---but
they both believed that the Gemora was indeed reporting on the Mishna's
original intent.

RMB:
>Halakhah is an oral tradition -- the intent is for a checked evolution,
> for progressive interpretation.

> Rather than original intent or final encounter, we take a historical
> flow, a middle path. And it's the weight of that momentum that should
> impact the reader.

>This is valid because the pursuit of pesaq is the interpretation of law.
> And law allows for multiple valid interpretations that the decisor must
>select among.

> The Rambam, OTOH, is a classicist. He learned texts looking for
>original intent.

The idea that in transmitting the mesorah, the legal status of objects,
actions or thoughts should conform to a single original Intent predates
Aristotle and goes back to Moshe Rabbeynu and beyond. The entire
enterprise in the Gemora that pits one Mishnah or speaker against another
and concludes either that the later speaker is in error or that one of
the statements must be modified so that they conform, assumes that there
is a single original idea that must be complied with.

Zvi Lampel



------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 27, Issue 179
***************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."