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Hi. I am back
torah umada vchulo,
Regarding that point We have the maharil chemdas shlomo artzos chaim kli chemda olas taimd etc. saying it IS possible to identify it. And also we have the Chavos yair, Shiltay Hagiborim, Toefes Haream, Yaavetz, Minchas Ani, Reb Shamshon Refoel Hirsh (and tiferes yisrael) who do identify it.
Also there is another point. I will copy from something I wrote in Hebrew
???? ?????? ??. “…??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?? ?? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ???'” ?????? ??”? ????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????, ??”? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ??”?. ?????? ??? ???? ??”? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????.
???? ???????? ??: ” ?”? ????? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? ???????” ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ??? ????, ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? (???’ ???????? ???’ ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????). ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????.
???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ???? (?????? ???????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ???) ??? ?????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ???? ???. ??????? ??????? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??? ????? ???? ?????????. ????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ?”? ????????, ??? ?????? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ????????? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ?? ???”? ???? ???? ???? ???? ????? ?? ??? (????? ?? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ???’ ?????? ???’ ????? ??? ?????, ?”? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???????).
???? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?? ???? ??”? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?????. ???? ???? ????? ????? (?????, ???????, ??????, ????????, ????????? ????) ???? ????? ?? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ????? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? ????? ???? ?????, ??? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ??”? ???? ?”? ????? ?????. ???? ??? ??? ???? ??? ???, ??”? ????? ?? ?????. ??? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?????. ??? ?? ???? ?”? ????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????.
[????] ????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ??”? ????”? ?”? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ????? [????? ???? ???”?].” ??”? ????? ???? ???’ ?’.)
Regarding the second point, that we only do mitzvos because we have a mesorah you should know this is not the tayne of brisk, and has nothing to with it. To say it eloquently it is your ‘own methodology of understanding Torah concepts and textual statements’ But i think my Rosh yeshivas example stands here. Yidden didn’t do mitzvos hateluyos bearetz for years…..
Regarding Rav Chaim’s opinion see an earlier post on page seven from Zvei dinim where he posted a link of a recording of rav chaim saying
“???? ???? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ?? ?????”
to quote the rambam
?”? ?”? ?????? ????? “??? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ??????? ?????? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ????? ????? ?? ????? ??? ??? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ????? ??? ?????… ????? ????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???. ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ?????? ?????? ?? ???. ?????? ????
TorahUmadda: I can’t even begin to fathom how you can think that you are on defense and I am on offense. The Torah says to wear Techeiles. The starting point is that we follow everything written in the Torah.
Wrong. The default is to follow the Torah as explained and instructed by the Rabbis. They have to instruct according to the dictates of the Torah. Mesora is b’geder “listening to the rabanan”. There are rules governing how to apply what the Torah says. We are ignorant of quite a few. It is not close to a pashut sugya.
You want to claim that you have a valid reason to not follow this command of the Torah. Therefore you are on offense.
Mesora is a valid basis. I don’t need to personally substantiate that, because others have already. If you can convince them that they are wrong, then fine. But until then, you cannot claim that they are inventing things without a sufficient understanding of Mesorah. So you can’t claim that they are wrong. Which puts you on offense.
A claim that the mesorah is against Techeiles has to be proven which you have yet to do.
True, but the default once there are legitimate people who hold of it to an outsider trying to make an objective assessment is that their shitta is valid. Your ignorance doesn’t dictate that the shitta is invalid until proven otherwise. As Chazal ekoquently put it, “Ain re’iya aino raya” (dikduk maybe off a bit). If you want to be intellectually honest, go find out what they say. And I don’t have to name anyone in particular, because they’re easy enough to find, and they probably don’t want to be quoted (at least the one I’m thinking of in particular).
If you want to claim that some mysterious rules of mesorah dictate keeping the status quo, the burden of proof is most definitely on you.
If I am the one initiating the claim, than yes. But I’m not. You can’t assume that something is wrong out of ignorance, which is what you’re doing.
(Interesting to note that you keep on mentioning Roshei Yeshiva and never once mention poskim or rabbonim.)
That’s because generally speaking, it’s the yeshivas who have specific Mesorahs.
“My point was that there is no raya from these rishonim that we absolutely can.”
For the second time, I am not bringing a raya that we absolutely can, I am bringing a raya that the rishonim and acharonim held that mesorah is not a reason to not reinstitute Techeiles.
This is logically incoherent, as that is not a different point in reference to the structure of the argument. My point was that there is no raya, even according to those who base their suppression of techeiles on Mesora.
“It could just be that theres a reluctance to change on anything, and that could well be the sole basis upon which a Mesorah can suppress techeiles.”
Notice the word COULD being used multiple times. One of the many reasons why people thought the prosecutors in the Zimmerman trial did a poor job was that they kept on saying “maybe this” “maybe that”. That’s what the defense attorneys are supposed to do. The prosecutor has to prove guilt, not suggest ways that might possibly show guilt. You are doing the same thing as the aforementioned prosecutors.
This does not add anything whatsoever. I already stated that I am on defense, hence the employment of language that reflects that.
“What is the therefore of this??”
The therefore is that since the gedolei haposkim held that Techeiles was not nignaz forever, I am not meshubad to R’ chaim.
I never claimed you are. The only point I took issue with was your systematic, definitive rejection of R’ Chaim as a valid shitta. Being a valid shitta does not in any way dictate that you follow it.
“The R”Y’s who follow the mesoras have to be able to answer it though. So ask them.”
This makes it seem as though you have never asked them yourself. So how pray tell do you know that there are any Roshei Yeshiva who hold this way? And if you did ask them, we are all waiting with bated breath to hear their answer(s).
What I know is that they hold Mesora is a basis. I am personally not concerned with why that is so. There are plenty more necessary and important things to learn first. And it’s likely the answer is not pashut to understand, especially in a vacuum.
Furthermore, no one nowadays can make up such a shitta without backing it up with rayas.
You keep saying things that were never disputed and making it seem like what I’m saying is dependent upon them. I said to go ask them. Exactly how could you possibly understand that, or anything else I said, to mean that the baalei Mesora can simply invent things out of thin air?? And the extent of the raya need be only the dictates of their Mesorah itself. And you cannot claim from ignorance about Mesoras to “prove they get that sort of authority”. Go learn about Mesoras first.
The Radzyner Rebbe wrote (some 120 years ago) something to the effect of saying that the mases don’t wear Techeiles because the gedolim don’t wear Techeiles and the gedolim don’t wear Techeiles because the masses don’t wear Techeiles. Interesting phenomenon if it’s true.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not a halachic justification anyway. Take a look at the Mesillas Yesharim in chasidus.
“TU731: Your dismissal of Rishonim’s opinions as being irrelevant today is more than reprehensible. Unless you can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Metziyus has changed to such an extent that their statements are no longer relevant, then what they say is far more binding than just about anything else we have. To dismiss Rabbeinu Yonah as being outdated is beyond arrogant and misguided.”
Thank you Sam2 for expressing my exact sentiments in such an eloquent way and allowing me not to have to be the one to say it.
I did not simply “dismiss” the opinions of any rishonim. Again, my point is that once there are legitimate people who hold of such a shitta, then you cannot out of ignorance think that your kashas are unanswerable.
Now about rishonim. Firstly, the simple reading is not always the correct understanding. Sometimes rishonim use language that nearly black-and-white indicates one side of a chakira when they hold of the other. That is a general rule of learning. Secondly, even if your understanding is correct, it is not necessary to conform to all rishonim, or even to most, in order to be a legitimate shitta. Now, on this premise, if there is a shitta advanced by legitimate people that disagrees, or seems to disagree, with rishonim, it is not arbitrary dismissal of rishonim for me to say that in this instance that may be pshat. This is because I am only stating such after the fact that the shitta exists. I am not claiming that as a general principle we need not be choshesh for rishonim. I am saying that it could be what the proponents of Mesora suppressing techeiles hold. That is not in any way arrogant. On the contrary, it is both arrogant and naive for anyone to claim that they know and understand the guiding principles of how “bound” we are by whats written explicitly in rishonim and how to interpret what they wrote better than gedolim. And that is true even if these principles themselves are disputed by gedolim/poskim, that you and I do not have a relevant opinion in the matter.
Now let’s address the “nignaz” argument. What does the midrash mean when it says that Techeiles is nignaz? Let’s go through the possibilities:
To quote your vernacular, you are pontificating. Yes there are kashas. Shkoach. Irrelevant. So don’t follow him. Not understanding what hes talking about is a valid basis to not follow someone.
Again I think you misunderstand my argument. My point was that it is hypocritical to claim that we shouldn’t wear Techeiles because of mesorah (especially considering that Techeiles was never not worn by choice,) yet at the same time wear your tzitzis out, directly flouting the mesorah to wear them in which unlike Techeiles was done by choice.
Two things:
1- You are making up that techeiles not being stopped by choice invalidates a Mesora saying to maintain the practice!!!!!!!
2- You are yet again substituting ignorance for understanding in thinking that you know “the” Mesora / its applicability on this. (This particular point happens to be a machlokes.) Your arbitrary assumptions are without merit in practical application.
Tora Umadda-
Is there anybody who saw the Maharil in teshuvos Chadashos and still thinks mesorah is a valid tayneh? Do you have any reason to believe the roshei yeshiva know the Maharil? I recently showed it to my RY and he was maskim you can’t be soimech on a (safek) beis haleivi lkula kneged it. The sefer was recently printed. The Bais Haleivi never saw it. If Achronim who say a shitta kneged rishonim they did not know, certainly it is not a valid shittah and we always say ???? ??? ??? ????
And there is no 2 ways of understanding it. I quoted the leshonos above.
Also ???? it is a machlokes if Nignaz means forever. We find many times that if metzious is muchach one way than the metzious can be machriah. The rayos to the Murex are overwhelming, so it is a raya muchachos to the maharil
PAA:
I dunno what they’re saying. But I’m saying that I don’t wear it because my rosh yeshiva–who is alive and well–does not wear it.
V’su lo midi.
We can discuss from today to tomorrow the hashkafa and halacha of it, but as long as my rebbe is alive and not wearing it, there is no way in the world that I am.
If someone wears techeiles and their rebbe does not, would you eat in their house?
There are different Mesoras — plural — that specific yeshivas have. These govern (or could) what to do and how to do it across anything. Specifics obviously depend on the particular one you’re looking at.
Sam posed the following question earlier:
The answer is neither. I’m not getting involved in the [potential] requirement for mesora to “have” a mitzva, or to identify a particular element necessary for one. What I’m saying is that there are other svaras that a mesora can/does create a very strong default muchzak on whatever was being done by the one who is/was transmitting the mesora. Now, I, mitoch rov chisaron daati, am not claiming that I understand how this stuff works. Cuz I do not. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m just pointing out that there is a completely different way that a mesora can talk to (and therefore litigate against) techeiles that has nothing to do with the dynamic of the necessity of “the” mesora to have / identify an element of a mitzva.
Thus, this “dimension”, if you will, of mesora, operates with a range of svaras that are not of the strict halachic variety necessarily of that which the rishonim are discussing.
And much of this stuff is very grey area material, quite naturally, and is therefore presumably disputed on various points amongst various gedolim, etc.
“Two things:
1- You are making up that techeiles not being stopped by choice invalidates a Mesora saying to maintain the practice!!!!!!!
2- You are yet again substituting ignorance for understanding in thinking that you know “the” Mesora / its applicability on this. (This particular point happens to be a machlokes.) Your arbitrary assumptions are without merit in practical application.”
You are being a politician and avoiding my question.
You are spewing blistering rhetoric to mask your ignorance. The truth is you simply do not know how mesora functions, its scope, applicablitity, etc enough to claim anything.!!!! Ignorance does not mean something is wrong. That is a basic principle of intellectual honesty. I am not the propagator of any mesora that i have to have the answers. In fact, I do not understand or know what the svaras are. But that doesn’t mean anything to an intellectually honest individual, because I am not the source of any mesora. I am not “avoiding” your questions. You are being intellectually dishonest.
How is it that by tzitzis out we can go against the mesorah but by techeiles we can’t.
If you have a kasha on a tosfos that you can’t find an answer for, do you assume the tosfos is wrong?? Go find someone from the mysterious mesora that you’re speaking of and ask why. Parroting already dealt with questions does not reinforce your position in any way. Unless you think you’re the first to have such a question in which case there are far worse problems. (And the comparison to tosfos is valid to bring out the concept — even if tosfos is a more extreme instance of it — that something that by default is valid is assumed to be valid even if you personally can’t figure it out, because vis-a-vis the concept, the difference is irrelevant.)
Whether or not in the final analysis it is a halachically binding svara, there is definitely more of a svara to change by techeiles than by tzitzis out.
The sheer arrogance of this statement is staggering. You have absolutely no idea what the svara(s) to not wear techeiles are!! How, then, can you claim, definitively no less, that “there is .. more of a svara to change by techeiles than by tzitzis out”????????
did you ever ask him why he doesn’t wear it? Maybe he is just relying on other people who don’t wear it who are in turn relying on other people and no one actually knows why. Also maybe he has a reaon that only applies to him. R’ Aharon Lichtenstein does not wear techeiles but he tells his talmidim to wear it.
Unlike his rebbe, who apparently does not tell his talmidim not to.
What I’m saying is that if your rebbe knows every detail of the subject of techeiles and knows all the metzius then it makes sense to rely on him. If not…
Again, you are not just paskening, but claiming what makes sense [and by extension what does not make sense] — on your own — for someone else what the criterion are for having a halcahically justifiable basis to not wear techeiles. You do not necessarily need to go through the sugya to not have to wear it if you’re following your mesora. Or if you’re following R’ Chaim. Or R’ Elyashiv. (It might depend on what the mesoras svara not to wear it is.) And just because there are poskim who hold you do does not make it binding on all kllal yisrael. It makes far more sense for him to follow his rebbe than some anonymous person in the CR.
TU731: Honestly, your pontificating about this nebulous “Mesorah” that can trump Rishonim and Mitzvos D’Oraisa with the head of every Yeshivah getting to define what they are sounds a lot more like Conservative Judaism than Orthodoxy.
How can you have a mesorah to not do a mitzvah?
If you don’t do it, it’s because of practical reasons (making you “pattur”), once those reasons are not there, you need to do a mitzvah.
“To quote your vernacular, you are pontificating. Yes there are kashas. Shkoach. Irrelevant.”
You admit that there are kashyas. Are there answers? If not then it very well might be relevant.
Of course I agree that these things need to be addressed. But the fact that there are things that require explanation doesn’t mean anything until you ask someone who is propogating the problematic shitta. And the default is that there are answers. And even if they are left off tzarich iyun, that is not a shlug up (vis-a-vis mesoras at least). The truth about the dynamics of mesoras is something that you would probably find – if what you’re saying here is any indication – very unsettling.
“So don’t follow him. Not understanding what hes talking about is a valid basis to not follow someone.”
So you agree that we should not follow R’ Chaim?
Absolutely not. Your logic again is fundamentally absurd. “Valid basis to not do” hardly suggests that one must not do. Furthermore, there are plenty of svaras that say otherwise. The sugya of whom to follow for psak is complicated, and the subject of machlokes. It cannot be said al regel achas in the CR. All I said is that you do not have to (and maybe even shouldn’t).
If you don’t do it, it’s because of practical reasons (making you “pattur”), once those reasons are not there, you need to do a mitzvah.
That’s not true. You are inventing on your own the basis for not doing it. There are other considerations.
TU731: Honestly, your pontificating about this nebulous “Mesorah” that can trump Rishonim and Mitzvos D’Oraisa with the head of every Yeshivah getting to define what they are sounds a lot more like Conservative Judaism than Orthodoxy.
Chas Veshalom!! I never said mesoras are nebulous. I said that very few people properly know and undertand what they are. To them it’s not nebulous. And you need a rebbe for rishonim too. It’s not an issue of “trumping” rishonim. Their lashon is often very misleading. (I’m not saying that that is necessarily true specifically here, though.)
My point is simply that there are other considerations — many that you won’t find addressed by the rishonim outright if at all — that are relevant.
And as far as sounding like conservative/reform, this is mamesh the ultimate extreme of what they are not!!! The whole idea of a mesora is being true to tradition as possible!! Con/Ref are all about “adapting” tradition, if you can even call that adapting, to modern times (ie modern morals, principles, etc).
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