And sometimes, the differences can be staggering!
I may not identify every case of dissonance, but as an instructor, I will show some basic cases
Case 1
Peshat and Halachah
Most people study Talmud based upon Rashi's Point of View [POV]. Rashi's read is often the most straightforward
However the Halachic process pretty much bypasses Rashi's take.
The prime sources for Halachah are:
- Rif
- Tosafot
Rif is the rockbed of Andalusian Halachah and is the prime source for Rambam and by extension R Yosef Karo.
As R JB Soloveichik was wont to say, without Tosafot we would not have Halachah
Sefer Me'irat Einayin in SA Choshen Mishpat 25 sums this up:
The Halachah follows Rif - except when Tosafot disputes him.
Rosh and Mordechai built their codes around Rif as embellished primarily by Tosafot. (Sometimes others EG. Rashi and Rambam)
Ran's commentary on Rif makes Rif axiomatic and makes Tosafot one of many sources to expound upon the Halachah.
Thus:
- The simple read of Talmud is through the prism of Rashi
- The Halachic read of the Talmud is through the prism of a synthesis of Rif and Tosafot.
The bad news is this breeds cognitive dissonance
The good news is that the halachah for the MOST part is not in conflict with the "raw" Talmud, rather it is conflict with ONE POV on Talmud - albeit the most popular POV.
Thus, the common denominator indeed exists for the most part on the Pages of Shas
KT
RRW
16 comments:
This is probably why my own ra"m never emphasized Rashi too much. To be sure, we did read every Rashi, and we understood the peshat like him.
But all the same, if there was a significant machloket between Rashi and Rif or Rambam, we'd see it. We'd also often look at Rosh and Ran.
And in the process, he'd be sure to examine how the Gemara read to those other authorities. By the end, Rashi's reading for us was but one possible reading. The other reading (Rif, etc.) was fit into the text of the Gemara as securely as Rashi's was, so by the end, we had no dissonance. We knew how to read through the text of the original Gemara as Rif or Rosh did just as well as we knew how to read through the text like Rashi.
Rabbi David Bigman says that his rosh yeshiva used to say, "Rashi didn't have Rashi!"
I think Rashi and the Rambam differ as to the nature of pesaq, as I recently posted to Avodah. I think the Rambam, following a basic Aristotilian inclination, treats it like a science -- discovering G-d's truth.
Rashi, and really with a fruition among the Baalei Tosafos, see pesaq as being more about defining and declaring law.
The problem is knowing how well the Rambam preserved mesores hage'onim. If there was a significant break followed by reconstruction, then the Rambam isn't actually following what he set out to do.
And judging from the number of machloqesin between the Rambam and the Rif, an earlier link in his own chain, I am inclined to disbelieve the Rambam could have succeeded at his proejct.
-micha
But at least Rambam had access to the Gaonic writings and teachings; if anyone had a right to disagree with them, it was him.
The later Spanish rishonim, even after they adopted much of Tosafot's methodology, still seem to have had more knowledge of ancient sources, and trusted them more often than Tosafot. (Tosafot seems to have had Rabenu Hananel and such, but is more willing to casually dismiss the Gaonic sources.)
For this reason, I am inclined to put more trust in the Sephardim than in the Ashkenazim. See Rabbi Dr. Jose Faur's The Legal Thinking of the Tosafot: A Historical Approach.
Faur? Thanks for litterally handing me a strawman. This is someone who believes that the Rambam who jettisoned so much because it didn't fit the Greek worldview was more loyal to mesorah than those who opposed him. And then writes about Ashkenazic unilingualism.
Rashi actually had a tighter connection to the geonim (via R' Chananel) than did the Rambam (a century later)!
The Rambam's notion of the chain including the geonim didn't stop him from wearing "Rashi" tefillin, unlike the geonim, hold like the Y-mi against the stam gemara (and thus Bavel in general)...
Faur's entire picture doesn't work. Eg, he ignores the mequbalim of the very Andalusia that he is claiming were the stole keepers of the untainted mesorah. (Read the Ibn Ezra's guide to astrology.)
Faur's perception of Tosafos is heavily colored by his desire to construct a Seph history that frees him from the common understanding of the halachic process.
-micha
Actually, while Tosafot had Rabenu Hananel, I thought Rashi lacked him. Be that as it may; it makes no real difference for us here. Even if any Franco-German Talmudists had Rabenu Hananel's text, they lacked an intimate personal familiarity with him, his school, and/or his disciples.
By contrast, Rif and Rambam had intimate contact not only with the texts of the Gaonim, but also with the general milieu.
Rabbi David bar Hayim, here, notes that the Bavli is casuistric with the Mishnah and hesistant to definitely declare the Mishnah's intent until such casuistry has been engaged in, whereas the Yerushalmi is far more succinct and willing to apodictically declare the Mishnah's intent with aplomb. Similarly, continues Rabbi bar Hayim, the Gaonim are willing to declare the Bavli's intent with aplomb, often declaring that two sugyot contradict, and that one of the two is to be rejected, just as the Yerushalmi is willing to disagree with the Mishnah without further ado. By contrast, just as the Bavli struggles to justify the Mishnah, using casuistry, so too Tosafot feels the need to make all the sugyot match. The Bavli treated the Mishnah as Tosafot treats the Bavli, and the Gaonim treated the Bavli as the Yerushalmi treats the Mishnah. It is all a function of proximity (in the sense of familiarity) and possession of tradition.
As for Rabbi Faur: let's ignore philosophy and kabbalah, and focus on halakhah. Whatever Rambam's questionable views on philosophy, no one can argue against him as a halakhist, one intimately familiar with the Gaonim.
Rabbi Faur notes that Tosafot's treatment of Behag robbed it of all authority; saying that its author was blind and therefore unreliable is to make his work entirely untrustworthy, in a way that no non-Tosafist did.
Rashi tefillin and Rabbenu Tam tefillin existed in the time of Bar Kokhba, long before Rashi and Tosafot. The nomenclature is obfuscatory; choosing Rashi tefillin in no way is to be conflated with choosing Rashi.
Personally, I don't mind reliance on Tosafot, as long as people realize what they're dealing with. Rabbi Faur's characterization of Tosafot would tie in well with what I say about post-modernism; Tosafot took some liberties with the text of the Gemara (see Faur for precise details), but I see this as perfectly legitimate, as long as the liberties are consistent with the Bavli, even if they are not the Bavli's own original intent. But to paraphrase Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, one cannot attach the Bavli's authority to these Tosafistic innovations. Moreover, one must realize what Tosafot did, so that he can critically determine when and when not to rely on Tosafot. I get almost sick when I hear people almost worship Tosafot as the root of all halakhah, as our lords and saviors. I'm sure Tosafot made many interesting and valuable contributions to Talmudics, but I view Tosafot more as some side-dishes and spices, to accompany the main course. Most of the time, I found Tosafot's interpretations of the Gemara to be strained and uncomfortable; I much preferred the Rif and the Rambam and the like to Tosafot.
Given that Tosafot lacked a mesorah from the Bavli comparable to the mesorah possessed by the Gaonim, Rif, and Rambam, the only way we can endorse Tosafot is via some sort of post-modernism, to legitimate Tosafot's liberties with the Bavli, these liberties being consistent with the Bavli but not its original intent. So, R' Micha, since you reject my post-modernism and such, how can you endorse Tosafot? If for you, mesorah and only mesorah is admissible, shouldn't you have to be following Rif and Rambam and the like without influence from Tosafot?
Hashkafically, I think it's pretty clear that essentially, I'm a fusion of German Neo-Orthodoxy and Balkan Sephardism, as long as with the latter, we replace the Kabbalism with Maimonideam rationalism. (It is rather apparent that roughly speaking, Rav Hirsch is simply an Enlightenment-style resurrection of Rambam.)
So I've been thinking that I shouldn't be too surprised if in halakhah too I turn out to prefer Sephardism.
One thought: if I go with Balkan Sephardism, I'd have to replace the Kabbalism with Maimonideanism. Perhaps I'd be better served by following Italian or Dutch Sephardim, who, despite dropping Ladino, nevertheless were able to successfully maintain other aspects of the Sephardic ethos, by virtue of their remaining in Western Europe. However, I don't yet know enough about these communities; my reading so far has been limited to Turkish and Greek Jewry. Any thoughts?
Are you actually arguing that (a) the gemara is based on sevarah rather than [textual] mesorah and (b) the Rambam had a stronger mesorah from the amoraim and savoraim onward therefore (c) the Rambam's view of the gemara is more authentic?
Rather, once we went from word-of-mouth to sevara, perhaps the error was in trying to return to word-of-mouth?
R' Ashi often gave a peirush dechuqah for a mishnah. Perhaps to fit what was accepted by the baalei mesorah closer to his age, perhaps to fit what was accepted as practical mesorah by the shomerei Torah umitzvos of his age. And always with some question from some other tanna or early amora that would otherwise be left unresolved. Basically, exactly what Tosafos do when they give a forced position in the gemara.
The baalei Tosafos might not always give answers that appear to be obviously the text, but they do at least address the contradictions between texts, try to fit the text with other sources such as the medrashei halakhah, and to understand how those who allowed minhag Yisrael [or at least Ashkenaz] to stand unchallenged in some practice or another could have seen the gemara. After all, the gemara isn't a text, it's part of a Torah shebe'al peh. You want it to make sense stand-alone, and are willing to sacrifice comprehensibility of the gemara as part of the big picture to get there.
Besides, given the number of machloqesin between the Rambam and the Rif, it would seem that the chain from the geonim through the Rif to the Rambam wasn't strong enough to be the basis of a return to a Y-mi like derekh. (Which, after all, is a fundamental abandonment of the Bavli as one is leaving it's entire modality.) For that matter, the Rambam in his letters to Chakhmei Luneil is quite clear in not being privy to some source of knowledge other than the same texts they had. (In the Rambam's own description of how to read a shverer Rambam; I presume you can find it in RMShapiro's discussion of the authenticity of Brisker derekh.)
AISI, the SA won the consensus (outside of the Baladim), and the SA is based on a synthesis of the two approaches, as per his famous (but often excepted) triumvirate of Rambam and Rif on one hand, and the Rosh on the other.
Unless you're Baladi or a geir from one of their Batei Din, do you have the right to reverse that decision? Or is that stepping out of the flow of mesorah to some meta-position?
Where Faur gets things wrong halachically is that halakhah too is included in his notion that the Rambam alone was right and other rishonim were either wrong or outright inventing things (eg Qabbalah) to question the Rambam-esque mesorah. He invents a chain of lineage that he has more faith in than the Rambam himself did (actually, it's not his invention; R' Yichyeh el Qafeh [R' Kapach's grandfather] and other Maimonidians also taught it), and then grants exclusivity to this line. The Rambam is among the stars of the rishonim, but he is after all "just" another rishon -- even in his own eyes.
-micha
BTW, you're using the word "mesorah" in multiple ways, which is why your last paragraph only sounds like it refers to my position.
1- I believe that the only meaningful analysis of halachic sources is one that looks at them from within the stream of interpretation (mesorah).
2- I do believe that only mesorah is admissible evidence. I do wear murex-dyed strings in hopes that I'm fulfilling techeiles. I do not know what I would think about fixing sifrei Torah to manuscripts, but I do daven out of a siddur where the Tehillim are corrected to Ben Asher, not the usual one-word "Hallelukah".
But that's analyzing the metzi'us about which to apply the mesorah, not analyzing mesorah as thought it were metzi'us. (Which I wrote about in #1.) Which is why (when I shifted from discussing what the CI held to what I personally think) I asked whether rov sifrei Torah is an issue of birur of the metzi'us, or of acharei rabbim lehatos and thus of defining the mesorah.
Two more definitions, although they don't arise in the ambiguity that lad to your question:
3- Mesorah is also used to mean the pragmatic tradition of what people do.
4- And to refer to the "quoting a pesaq" Y-mi style learning in contrast to the Bavli's greater focus on sevara.
-micha
> Are you actually arguing that
> (a) the gemara is based on
> sevarah rather than [textual]
> mesorah
Not quite. The Gemara's relationship to the Mishnah, I'd compare to what would happen if you took an Sephardi book to an Ashkenazi land, or vice-versa. Most of the principles are the same, but many of the nuances will be lost due to lack of intimate familiarity. And even where the nuances are successfully understood, it will be only after painstaking casuistry.
So yes, the Babylonian rabbis did have some mesorah of their own, but it was mesorah of halakhah in general, and not of the Mishnah specifically. Thus, when the Babylonian Amoraim tried to understanding the Mishnah specifically, they had some difficulties.
As you point out, then, the Babylonian Amoraim often would make forced interpretations of the Mishnah in order to uphold their own traditions. One of the Gra's students says this is the secret behind חסורי מחסרא והכי קתני, and Rabbi Berkovits explains okimta similarly.
-----------
You make a good point that I'm being slavishly loyal to the Bavli, losing out on the rest of TSBP in the process. I guess this brings us back to the question of what one's goal is; is one trying to be true to the Bavli per se, or to TSBP in general? I'll have to ponder this further.
-----------
> Unless you're Baladi or a geir
> from one of their Batei Din, do
> you have the right to reverse
> that decision [by the SA]?
> Or is that stepping out of the
> flow of mesorah to some meta-
> position?
Well, technically, the Ashkenazim, in following the Rama, are violating the SA as well.
But I'm just being pedantic; in reality, the Ashkenaim are following the Rama's mesorah as much as the Sephardim are following the SA's, and we must ask the same question as we did with the Bavli: are we intent on following one text slavishly, or TSBP in general?
Now, for my real response to the above quote of yours: of course anyone has full freedom to differ with the SA! Why should one have to be a ger or Baladi? What, pray tell, makes the SA authoritative? Did we all get together in room and swear to follow the SA? Did the Sanhedrin pasken that the SA is authoritative? Of course not. Today, no one in the Jewish world has authority; all authority today is horizontal, without any vertical dimension.
One has freedom to follow any halakhic view that has basis, regardless of how many others agree with his own opinion. So I personally have no right to disagree with the SA, but Rabbi Ploni can follow the Yerushalmi and ignore the Bavli, Gaonim, Rambam, Tosafot, Rosh, SA, Rama, and everyone else too, if he so chooses. Whether this is prudent is irrelevant; we are arguing issur v'heter, not what is good.
Similarly, lacking minhag ha-maqom, anyone today has full freedom to regard or disregard any minhag he chooses. Minhagim are totally optionally nowadays.
But perhaps one will argue that it is not good, not prudent to so casually regard Jewish custom and tradition. And this claim may be true. But prudence and goodness do not negate the fact that from a purely formal technical standpoint, there is no obligation whatsoever today for anyone to adhere to any given minhag. As Rabbi Alan Yuter says, we must distinguish between halakhah and personal subjective policy.
R' Micha,
I think I'm still not quite getting your mesorah-reliant standpoint. Is it that feel we cannot go back in time and reexamine matters and interpret them differently than others did? If so, how far does one take this? Are we forbidden to interpret Rambam differently than the first ever commentator on Rambam?
I personally don't see any reason to prohibit us from examining anew any era of history. Now, practically speaking, there are impediments; we simply don't have the resources and intimate familiarity necessary. But hypothetically, I'd say that if a rabbi today could go back in time and live his life in the Mishnaic era, and gain that intimate familiarity, I'd say that today, he could start paskening halakhah contrary to the Mishna, or contrary to the Bavli and Yerushalmi, etc.
After all, halakhah is not some sort of arcane art dependent on any mystical or metaphysical or supernal assistance. It is a science, based on certain empirical facts, and everyone is free to interpret those facts as his intellect directs him. Theoretically, I see no reason why a non-Jew, wise in halakhah, couldn't be a poseq. The only limitation is the Sanhedrin's authority to compel obedience to its own interpretation, but we have not had a Sanhedrin for quite some time.
Michael, you wrote: You make a good point that I'm being slavishly loyal to the Bavli, losing out on the rest of TSBP in the process. I guess this brings us back to the question of what one's goal is; is one trying to be true to the Bavli per se, or to TSBP in general? I'll have to ponder this further.
That's it in a nutshell. TSBP is an oral culture. The text is really only Torah if you view it as part of the general flow of that culture.
I'm not saying it's wrong to spend time studying mishnah or shas from a literary or historical perspective. I'm just saying it's not talmud Torah, and not usable as a basis for halachic practice.
As for the SA vs the Rama, they're both using the same process. They start from different places -- they are working with different sets of "common practice" and in communities that were more aware of a different set of opinions. But what they do with them -- an attempt to balance fealty to precedent with using sevara to make a single picture out of everything -- is the same.
As for your question about rejecting the SA, or to be more precise, the SA's approach to halakhah -- consensus. With the exception of one small pocket (Faur's fantasies about the retention of a distinct Andalusian mesorah after the 15th cent aside), the mesorah reached consensus.
That's what mesorah as a living tradition of evolving hermeneutic means. Halakhah is not a science, it's a legal tradition. We don't step out and produce ideas outside the stream; or if we do, we're no longer following the mesorah.
-micha
But today, without a Sanhedrin, there's no nafka mina between science and a legal tradition.
To make a reductio ad absurdum, reliance on mesorah means no one can disagree with the most recent halakhic view expressed on a given topic. If this very moment, someone pens a revolutionary new hiddush, then no one can disagree with it, since it's now the most recent contribution to the mesorah.
You might retort that no, we're only obligated by what is accepted, by consensus. But how do we quantify this? What about all the rabbis who never published books? Must we all gather in a room and vote to establish consensus? What about the followers of rabbis who made their dissent known at the time the consensus formed? Must consensus be worldwide, or can it be within a given geographic region? If the former, then you've established a minhag ha-maqom of a world-wide maqom, which is unprecedented. If within a given geographic region, then perhaps I can define the region of my own personal four cubits, and say that there is no mesorah within those cubis, permitting me whatever I will according to my own personal understanding.
As Rabbi bar Hayim says, barring a Sanhedrin, there's no obligation to follow any particular view or book, even the Bavli. It may be prudent, just as it is prudent to do what the heart surgeon says, but just as consensus regarding who's the best surgeon is meaningless (if he's the best, then he's the best whether anyone votes for him or not), so too, consensus in halakhah is meaningless.
Only when there is a Sanhedrin is there anything definitive and binding.
I'm quite aware that many posqim speak of consensus; they also speak of a given book having been authored under ruah ha-qodesh, granting it authority.
Neither claim impresses me.
First, neither has any halakhic validity. Certainly, lo ba-shamayim hi renders the ruah ha-qodesh claim absurd. That is, if it weren't already absurd enough; this claim cannot be empirically measured or quantified, and anyone can claim it about any book. I say Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits's books were written under ruah ha-qodesh. Why? Because I say so!
As for consensus, it, like ruah ha-qodesh, has no formal halakhic validity as far as I know, except when there is a Sanhedrin.
The authority of consensus is not "some poseqim", it's everybody. See the Rambam's haqdamah even.
I would argue further, that the authority of Sanhedrin is /derivative/ of consensus. Just as they represent the community as a whole when it comes to buying the qorbanos tzibbur, their opinion of the halakhah has the authority of the informed community.
-micha
"I would argue further, that the authority of Sanhedrin is /derivative/ of consensus"
Actually the Torah in Vayiqra says "when the entire nation sins" and the Talmud and Posqim equate that with the Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin ==> Nation of Israel
In the absence of a Sanhedrin maybe we can posit the converse, [certainly Catholic Israel has]
Nation of Israel ==> Sanhedrin
At any rate Professor Irving Agus;' Thesis addresses Halachic authority after the last Sanhedrin as :"Tutorian Authority"
So all of Mike's difficulties were answered to me when I was 21 because he had a coherent, cohesive understanding of How Halachah morphed after the Churban. It worked virtually throughout Ashkenazic history but broke down somewhere around 250 years ago except among Yekkes, some Litvaks, and Oberlander Hungarians
Both Hassidism and the GRA worked on unweaving that fabric, as some earlier catstrophes, too
The Mesorah from Mehullam ben Kalonymos through the Maharil- Rema-L'vush had a few bumps in the road but it was fairly cohesive.
As such I don't See Hasimas haTalmud in the "Maimonidean" way as a break of tradition. Gaonic literature didn't either.
So there were two eras of TSBP
Before the Hurban and after.
Afterward, it's a continuum with some guidelines and conventions but operates a lot like English common Law
RRW
Post a Comment