Thursday, April 12, 2018

halacha theory - How studying Torah without Machlokot is possible?


The idea of Machloket-less study and transmission of the Oral Torah is very basic in Judaism.


I spot two approaches:




  1. That of Sanhedrin 68b - there were Machlokot and different approaches and schools, but they were all settled by the working Sanhedrin:



    "תניא, אמר רבי יוסי: מתחילה לא היו מרבין מחלוקת בישראל, אלא בית דין של שבעים ואחד יושבין בלשכת הגזית"



    "... Rabbi Yosei said: Initially, discord would not proliferate among Israel. Rather, the court of seventy-one judges would sit in the Chamber of Hewn Stone... "





  2. That there were no different approaches, just as Moses didn't have them: Rashi (Sotah 47a see also Temurah 16a):



    "עד ימיהן לא היה מחלוקת בחכמי ישראל כולן היו אומרים דברים כנתינתן למשה"






While the first sound reasonable and feasible, the second sounds improbable and illogical: besides simple reciting mantras, discussing just anything leads to discords as a result of:




  • Differences in perception of the surrounding world - for example, time of sunrise, colors of stains, animal species or estimations of physical states (illness etc)




  • Finding new interpretations of the text




  • Different hierarchy of values (what overrides what)





Moreover, we can clearly see that Moses himself perceived the obligating (him) Halochos differently than what G-d told him, as in Breaking the Luchos, adding a day before Matan Torah, hitting the Rock and more.


I'm looking for a more comprehensive explanation of the approach that for over a thousand years studying of the Torah was Machloket-less.




No comments:

Post a Comment

digital communications - Understanding the Matched Filter

I have a question about matched filtering. Does the matched filter maximise the SNR at the moment of decision only? As far as I understand, ...