Reply To: Pesach questions

DY> the gemara doesn’t contemplate that maybe the Tannaim made a mistake.

of course. the power of Bavli is developing a method of working with uncertain information – Amoraim start with incomplete and possibly corrupted Tannaic statements and develop a system of reconstructing full information, avoiding personal biases and simplistic conclusions. That makes Bavli more popular later on than Yerushalmi. Yerushalmi may be closer to the source, so it does not develop similar rules. So, Bavli gives us a method to solve new problems – and a reason to learn it.
This is Maharal, not kefira, to save you on typing.

So, when there are contradictions between Tannaim or between Tannaim and important principles and svorahs, we need to understand the difference. In some cases, they’ll limit Tannaic principle to fit other info, or even change or discard, especially if the statement certainty is not high (baraita v Mishna, etc). I am sure you know more examples than I do. For sure, we have examples where “we follow X” and “you follow Y” but this is not always so. In the particular covid case, we have Rabonim on multiple sides of the issue and there are principles of sakanah, hillul hashem, etc involved, and I consistently asked here for the citation and explanations of other opinions and di not hear any specific teshuvot. Again, in my shtetl, all Rabonim are careful personally. that some Jewishly dressed people are not does not create any confusion in my mind. Are they following poskim from other cities? is it proper? I hoped CR will be a “safe space” (literally) to find out, but nobody brought anything except rants about unspecified “daas Torah” that seem to propagate invisibly between unmasked individuals.