Somehow, I suspect that if kitniot weren't written down by the Ramah, no one would be keeping it today. That is, it is only textual Orthodoxy that insists on kitniot, not because of any compelling reason, but because the rulebook says so, stam.
Yesterday, someone was telling me of a friend whose child has asthma. The child's inhaler prescription lapsed, and so, when the child had an asthma attack, the childcare center refused to administer his inhaler (even though the prescription lapsed, the inhaler itself was still in their possession, obviously), even though his life was in danger. After all, the prescription has expired, and according to the book, they cannot administer the medicine!
My point is that it is no longer a minhag that people actually do (and by definition, a minhag is what people do), but rather, it is a minhag that people do against their will, because the book says so. Were it not for the minhag's being written down, I'm sure that people would have by now simply stopped doing it, naturally. But the minhag has ceased to be a practice-defined minhag, and has rather become a ontological halacha that is binding irrespective of what people do.
Al tosif. [Do not add onto the mitzvot.]
(For more on this general topic, see my thoughts at Minhag: haMakom or Avot?)
Someone else ("Shimon") there replied,
Michael,
your comments remind me of Rav Eliezer Berkowitz's opinion that the codified halacha killed the torah shpb and the we became karaites of the shulchan aruch.
I replied,
Shimon, in my view, you have just paid me an extraordinary compliment. I have been greatly influenced by Rav Berkovits's thought, and I have found that this has progressed to the point that quite unintentionally, I often will say things that are, in my view, reminiscent [in retrospect] of his thought. You here have confirmed my suspicion; I made no attempt here to imitate or follow Rav Berkovits, but apparently, I could not help myself.
According to Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, a rebbe has a talmid not when the student knows what the rebbe said, but rather, when the student knows what the rebbe would have said. Rabbi Shmulevits recounts a time when a student came to him excitedly to tell a certain hiddush (novel insight) he (the student) had had in Gemara. The student recounted his hiddush, and Rabbi Shmulevitz knew that he himself had given a lecture saying exactly what the student now was saying in his (the student's) own name! Now, reasoned Rabbi Shmulevitz, surely this student would not be so brazen as to tell one of Rabbi Shmulevitz's hiddushim to his (Rabbi Shmulevitz's) face in his (the student's) name, so Rabbi Shmulevitz instead reasoned that the student had learned Rabbi Shmulevitz's hiddush from him (Rabbi Shmulevitz), forgotten it, and conceived of it anew on his own. Rabbi Shmulevitz rejoiced, and considered it his happiest day ever; he had a talmid!
As an example of my unintentionally following Rav Berkovits, I'll note that my post Torat Hayim - The Torah of Life - EVOLVING Life began without any mention of Rav Berkovits; rather, I mentioned only Rabbi Avraham Shamma's teshuva on kol b'isha. It was only after I wrote the post that I realized that I had almost plagiarized Rav Berkovits, so I went back and inserted references to him, before posting. I also dedicated the title to him, as anyone familiar with his work will realize. Another of my posts, Does Modern Orthodoxy Have Any Legitimacy?, is also highly Berkovits-ian.
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2 comments:
Since you're so well read, I'm sure you've already read it, but your comments themselves tie in nicely to Haym Soloveitchik's thesis on mimetic Judaism vs. textual Judaism.
http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm
Skeptic, thank you for that link.
Actually, you're only partially correct. I had indeed briefly scanned the essay previously, and I knew its general gist, but I had never really studied it intently. Finally, just a moment ago, I finished studying it, the work of a day's labor.
I'll certainly have to contemplate many things based on that essay. In particular, I've felt that we must allow scientific methods of study to have their voices heard. For example, if the traditional interpretation says X, but new manuscripts or new knowledge of realia or the like, or new linguistic evidence, etc., says something other than X, I've felt we must grant serious consideration to this new finding.
But is this not similar to what the Haredim have done? Even if the motivation is entirely different (explicitly innovative and revolutionary rather than conservative), is not the end result (viz. an elevation of text over tradition) the same?
So I'll have to consider this. My initial thoughts, are, however, that as in all things, moderation and nuanced understanding is key. Granting credence to new scientific discoveries and new manuscripts does not automatically mean overturning tradition. For example, did the tradition arise as a result of the misunderstanding of the old source (and therefore, intellectual honesty demands we revise the practice in light of the revelation), or was the tradition's departure from the original meaning of the text independent of the text's understanding (for example, Tosafot often reinterpreted the Gemara, not out of simple misunderstanding, but out of a desire to square the Talmud with preexisting traditions, often based on the Yerushalmi and Bahag)?
For the latter (viz. the tradition is independent of the misunderstanding), I am reminded of what my friend Mr. Art Sapper has told me regarding the pronunciation of Hebrew. Mr. Sapper has taught me to pronounce the ayin, het, dhalet, thau, waw, etc. in their more correct manners, as a Zionistic gesture. However, as regards the tzadi, he told me that even though the current pronunciation is not the same as the Biblical pronunciation (and therefore, one would think that Zionism should dictate adopting the Biblical tzadi), nevertheless, its change was a natural Semitic development, and not due to galut linguistic influence (by contrast, he says, the Ashkenazim lost the Hebrew "th" sound at the same time that the German language did), and therefore, we may tolerate the new pronunciation of the tzadi, even as we seek to reinstate the ayin and het and such.
So I suspect that the decision of when to let mimetics rule, and when to let scientific discoveries (in text) rule, must be made on an ad-hoc basis by those well aware of both the mimetic and textual traditions, and thus competent to weigh the decision of when to rely on which.
Similarly, the Haredim are of course not totally wrong in adapting to modernity; surely no one would argue that they should blithely avoid any change! But the Haredim then have two sins:
1) Their insistence of continuity, when in actuality change is present. That is, adaption to modernity is perfectly legitimate, but one must admit that adaption has occurred; the false insistence of continuity and lack of change is stultifying to the intellect and harmful in practice, and does not assist in genuine and proper and fitting adaption.
2) All adaption must be moderate and fitting. For example, the shift from self-enclosed communities with axiomatic identity to modern culturally diverse societies, in which identity depends solely on ideology, this may justify expanding yeshiva education to bounds beyond that which existed previously, but this does not mean one may displace the Torah perspective on secular learning and occupation! This adaption may be proper theoretically, but it must not be extreme in practice, to the extent that it damages other values in Judaism. And again, one must admit that the adaption is innovative, and not blithely deny it, and claim that all is unchanged.
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