Mishna Question

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  • #2022547
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    So this is my understanding of Torah shebeal pe:

    Hashem gave Moshe Rabbeinu the Torah and he also explained it to him. Moshe then passed the explanations to Yehoshua orally. He then passed it to the Zekenim etc etc. Until R Yehuda HaNasi was forced to write down all that information because of the tribulations that Am Yisroel was facing.

    So how is it that you see multiple opinions in a Mishna? For example New year of trees is 1st of Shevat or Fifteenth. How could there be two options if Hashem ostensibly gave Moshe only one answer? Are they both somehow true and we just follow one approach?

    #2022658
    yuda the maccabi
    Participant

    ignorant ques.
    read the hakdama of the rambam
    and then the hakdama of the meam loez
    and then ask your local orthodox rabbi

    #2022690
    HaLeiVi
    Participant

    Excellent question. Disgusting response.

    #2022698
    ☕ DaasYochid ☕
    Participant

    I agree with HaLeiVi.

    #2022701
    ☕ DaasYochid ☕
    Participant

    There’s a book named The Dynamics Of Dispute, written by Rabbi Zvi Lampel, which deals with this issue.

    #2022710
    ujm
    Participant

    This is a famous question.

    #2022767
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    Perhaps Hashem told Moshe: the first of the month is when so and so happens in the tree and the fifteenth of the month so and so happens. So both have Emes but we just follow one approach?

    Or perhaps, Hashem told Moshe only one opinion but somewhere along the way, someone got another tradition that got passed down and both opinions got recorded?

    Just thinking out loud.

    #2022777
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Great question! Yuda, that reply was insulting, and dangerous…

    In Torah she baal peh, machlokes develops as an outgrowth of different understandings. Both sides are branches of the root of Torah reasoning, just one focuses on one aspect, and the other, a different one. For example, in the mishnah you quoted… do we reckon rosh Hashanah l’ilonos based on when the physical manifestations of fruit begins (the syrup filling the tree and the internal budding), and when the majority of the year’s fruit-growing rain has finished falling on the 15th, or do we always go by the first of the month wherein such things happen. Both are logical and revolve around the same idea, with two diverging approaches.

    Torah she baal peh was not a static set of kitzur shulchan aruch-esque laws. It was designed to be an ever flowing wellspring of thought and logic that will inevitably produce different results depending on the shoresh neshoma of a given chochom. As long as the chochom has a mesorah on how to go through a sugya, has yiras shomayim, and dedicates his life to the procedure, he is assured siyata dishmaya that his psak will reflect one of the 70 “faces” of Torah. Hashem “agrees” to whatever psak the beis din reaches, as can be seen with the oven of rebbe Eliezer, where a bas kol agreed to him, but the halacha did not follow it. They were listening to Hashem more in ignoring the bas kol than had they listened to it, because Hashem wrote “al pi hatorah asher yorucha” and “laav beshomayim hi”.

    #2022778
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Of course, the ever flowing spring has limitations; we are not on the level to overturn the decisions of batei din that have come before us, because the halacha is that to do so, we must be greater in chochma and number.

    #2022783
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    Yabia – your first mahalach is a lot closer to the truth; we say eilu ve’eilu divrei elokim chaim….not every rishon holds this way, but that’s the accepted mesorah

    #2022824
    ☕️coffee addict
    Participant

    “Or perhaps, Hashem told Moshe only one opinion but somewhere along the way, someone got another tradition that got passed down and both opinions got recorded?”

    We say אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים so both are true

    Which means to say your first answer makes more sense

    #2022825
    ☕️coffee addict
    Participant

    But to add to your question

    The famous machlokes with תורה לא בשמים היא if moshe Rabbeinu passed it down we should know the Halacha and if we don’t why can’t שמים explain the הלכה

    #2022826
    Reb Eliezer
    Participant

    Torah Sebaal Peh was not allowed to be written down originally so the minimum was passed over to each recipient which sufficed then for their great understanding but as the Jews were in diaspora their minds became weaker and questions arose which they started to argue about. The Rabbenu Bachaya explains at the end of Parashas Ki Sisa that Rebbi, Rebbi Yehuda Hanasi only wrote down the minimum necessary for understanding. As the generations went on, more and more explanations and commentaries became necessary.

    #2022850
    Yabia Omer
    Participant

    “Both are logical and revolve around the same idea, with two diverging approaches.”

    So did Hashem tell Moshe both opinions?

    #2022839
    Reb Eliezer
    Participant

    The Darashas Haran, Darush 7, explains that Rebbi Eliezer’s view was not accepted even it is emes according to the heavenly understanding, as once the Torah was given down to earth at kabolas hatorah, we must understand it through human understanding. Maybe, for the same reason currently we don’t pasken like the Beis Shamai but leosid lavo we will gain a higher understanding and the majority will follow the Beis Shamai so we will pasken like them.

    #2022883
    ☕️coffee addict
    Participant

    Reb eliezer,

    Did moshe rabbeinu understand it with heaven understanding or human understanding

    #2022886

    Adding, without contradicting previous answers:
    Halakha needs to be responsive to different societies and environment and this is the role of Oral Torah v. things that are eternal and are written down. Part of our avodah is for each generation ti struggle with issues of the time – whether entering EY, or galus Bavel, Romans, pogroms, freedom of religion, Covid … We clearly both gained and lost by writing Oral Torah down. We gain ability to better argue across generations and benefit from their knowledge. But we lost some by having it necessary to process every decision thru all amoraim, rishonim, and ahoronim. This probably leaves Talmidei Chachamim less sharp as they don’t need to solve issues from the first principles the way Tannaim did. (and that is why we have too many claiming the title)

    #2022935
    Reb Eliezer
    Participant

    Moshe Rabbenu and the others could not transfer the Torah and determine our psak halacha wiith heavenly understanding. According to the above Ran it requires sechel enoshi, a human mind.

    #2022933

    Reb Eliezer Sheyichye, wont we follow Beis Shamai when Mashiach comes?

    #2022940
    Reb Eliezer
    Participant

    The Ksav Sofer on Parashas Yisro gives a mashel from his father the Chasam Sofer. A father had a goldmine and had multiple children. He wanted that the youngest child should inherit it, so he taught him the act of goldmining and divided the goldmine equally. Since the others did not know what to do with it, it automatically fell to the youngest child. The Torah Shebeksav is the goldmine and the Torah Shebaal Peh the act of goldmining. We received the Torah Shebaal Peh so we were able to understand the Torah Shebelsav. The Rabbenu Bachaya has another mashel where a king commands in writing his child to follow certain behavior and the reward given if followed by him. Being afraid that it will fall into the wrong hands who will demand the reward for their behavior, he passes part of his commandment orally.

    #2023118
    Reb Eliezer
    Participant

    farbycoffe, don’t you read posts? Didn’t I say that leosid lavo we will understand Beis Shamai’s view and the majority will follow them, so we will therefore pasken like them?

    #2023595
    anonymous Jew
    Participant

    It’s not necessary to search for mystical reasons for multiple, sometimes contradictory , opinions in the Oral Torah. For an accurate transmission of anything as extensive as the Oral Torah you need a stable environment. King Menashe’s 50 year reign of terror saw nany chachomim murdered and others forced into hiding. The Babylonians and Assyrians slaughtered hundreds of thousands and exiled others. The Romans did the same, creating an environment making it difficult to accurately remember. Just look at Masechet Succah. Much of the gemarah deals with the fact they couldn’t remember how many walls were needed nor the minimum or maximum size, and that was only 3 centuries from the churban.

    #2023639
    AviraDeArah
    Participant

    We’re not “searching” for mystical reasons. This isn’t like how scientists used to attribute unexplained phenomena through metaphysics, which they abandoned once they found a viable scientific reason.

    In hashkofa, the metaphysical isn’t an attempt at explaining something unknown; it’s a reality which doesn’t preclude physical earthly reasons. When chazal say that there’s a malaach underneath each blade of grass telling it to grow, that was not said because they struggled to understand why the grass grows and a malaach making it happen solved the conundrum. Rather, they were saying what’s going on behind the scenes, on the higher planes that exist above the physical world. The physical world, termed “olan ha’asiah” is the last rung in a domino effect sequence that starts on most high in shomayim… however ultimately what’s decided in shomayim is due to our actions (asiah) down here – that’s why yaakov saw the malachim “olim veyordim bo”, first rising from earth and then going back down to it from shomayim.

    It could be I’m reading a lot into what you’re saying, but i think it’s worthwhile to explain this distinction nonetheless.

    Anyways, the reasons given augment our understanding of history

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