Perfect Misunderstannding 11 - Mishnah-Talmud, Talmud-Tosafot

Parameters of
Deflection*, Disputation and Refutation of Higher Authorities

Note: this is also related to the series on Cognitive Dissonance.

Preface:
Here is a recent exchange among 3 rabbis - slightly fictionalized - illustrating a powerful Talmudic dynamic.

Rabbi X quoting the Gadol haDor [GhD]

From 17th of Tammuz until R"Ch Av has a din of Shloshim!

Rabbi Y interjects:

Din shloshim salqa da'atach?" Where is the issur of bathing and of laundering?

Comes Rabbi Z to be machri'a:

Hachi Qa'amar GhD:
From 17th of Tammuz until R"Ch has a din of yud beis Chodesh, but from R"Ch on has a din of shloshim!

Question:
Without Rabbi Z having come along, what right did Rabbi Y have to challenge the "GhD"? Wasn't he exceeding his authority? His boundaries?

What - if anything at all - specifically permits Rabbi Y to speak up?

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Now let's go back in time to the Talmud

Mar'eh M'qomot Mishnah P'sachim 3:1
TB P'sachim 42b bottom

"R Eliezer Omeir"

R Eliezer states "Af Tachsheetei Nashim"

The Talmud asks
"Tachsheetei Nashim Salqa Da'atach? Ela Eima af TIPULEI nashim..."

Let's get our bona fides here

What Amora in the Talmud has the authority to question an explicit Tanna?

IOW What permission does this Amora have
to dispute the Tanna R Eliezer?

[Note we won't venture forht into the issue of this being the STAM of the Talmud and thus a very late Amora]

Also note by changing Tachsheetei Nashim to Tippulei Nashim - based upon a Meimra of Rav Yehudah mar Rav - this is really "deflecting" * the Tanna.

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Now as for Tosafot deflecting * the talmud

Mar'eh M'qomot
TB Arachan 2b-3a re: Q'riyat haMgillah

R Y'hoshua Ben Levi says "nashim hayavot bMIQRA m'gillah, she'af hein hayu b'oto haneis" ergo they read the M'gillah - ostensibly their obligation is the SAME as that of men. And so codifies the Rambam in MT Hil. M'gilah 1:1 and the SA O"Ch Hil. M'gilah 689:1

Yet Tosafot quoting B'HaG requires women to listen to M'gllah but NOT to read? How can B'Hag deflect* an unapposed Meimra?

Apparently, RYBL is deflected by Tosafot. based upon a "reality check" in the Tosefta. The Tosefta explicitly prohibits women from reading the M'gillah, leaving hearing/listening instead as an avilable alternative.

Now, how are BOTH not overstepping their boundaries?

1. The Talmud in deflecting the Tanna R Eliezer
2. Tosafot-B'HaG in deflecting the meimra of RYBL?

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Perforce, we must question the rigidity of our rules of Talmud and they apply to at least three related relationships

1. Amoraim to Tannaim
2. Rishonim to Amoraim
   Note, in Rambam's nomenclature all post Talmudic Hachamim are termed "G'onim"
3. And by extension Contemporaries towards our "poseiq hador"

When we say an Amora may not dispute a Tanna, how in reality does this work?

Similarly, we say that Rishnonim may not dispute the Talmud
how in reality does this work?

Finally, if/when we say that contemporaries may not dispute THE GhD - how in reality does this work?

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We see DE FACTO Talmud severely modifying the Tanna

And we DE fACTO see Tosafot modifying the simple take of the Bavli, often via dialectic.

Well answering Tosafot is a bit easier
Simply said

Tosafot does to the Talmud what the Talmud does to the Tannaim - IE Mishnah or Braitto.

In this case the reality check proves that RYBL cannot be taken literally.

Now the next part - how does the Talmud itself do it?

The simple approach is:

Checking the reality of a given statement, by comparing it with parallel sources, is not out-of-bounds, nor is it to be construed as a refutation nor as a dispuation.

Here - given the reality of R Y'hudah amar Rav - R Eliezer coudn't have really said "tachsheetei" or at least not meant it tha way.

What about #3? Here comes another slightly fictionalized account

EG one "GhD" allegedly posits that Rema basis himself in a given p'saq on a Rambam

Rabbi A challenges this assumption, because EG the Shach and Taz clearly read the Rema's basis quite differently.

Furthermore, Rabbi A challenges even Talmidei GhD to question the GhD's read.

Rabbi B came along to say we must follow GhD! Rabbi A countered

1. Maybe so, but questioning is essential to the process and does not ipso facto constitute disputation, rather it is a prerequisitie to clarificaton

2 Maybe THIS GhD has been misquoted or misunderstood! It is perhaps only alleged that the GhD said the Rema was based upon Rambam. Why? Because it is unlikely the GhD would formulate in such a way as to contradict an open Shach and Taz. So the communicator of the GhD is more in question than said GhD Himself - JUST as Rabbi X misspoke above. And Just as the Tanna R Eliezer cannot really mean "tachseetei" and just as RYBL cannot really mean Liqro but Lishmo'a.

And had Rabbi Y not seen the GhD's statement as incongruous, a "ziyyuf" of p'shat might have been fostered albeit inadvertently.

Bottom Line, reality checks are not hutzpadik - they are essential! And sometimes better to question than no to! Lo habayshan Lameid!

Shalom
RRW

* Defintion of Deflection as an Anti-Tosafistic Chaveir stated to me what Tosafot does - "deflects" the Talmud!

Comment: Well isn't this the case that The Talmud is deflecting the Tanna R Eliezer? How is it any different?