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“People who try to come up with grand theories of Judaism: the theories tend to be based on one or two sources to the exclusion of everything that contradicts it”

A lot of people selectively cite sources. People who try to come up with grand theories of Judaism: the theories tend to be based on one or two sources to the exclusion of everything that contradicts it. We saw some examples of Rabbi Avi Weiss doing that, too. In particular, saying “We follow the tradition of Rav Kook” except for the parts you don’t like. Here [with Rabbi David Hartman], his primary foundation paradigm is Abraham’s argument with God. But ignoring everything else. It’s a blind spot that people have. And I think everyone has that blind spot. The question is “What do you do with it when confronted with things that conflict?” Hartman already admitted that when you come across a text that conflicts with your moral sensibility, you reinterpret that text to fit your moral sensibility, as opposed to using conflicting texts to, maybe, refine a better, more nuanced halakhic sensitivity. Grand theories are where, I think, people get in trouble. When you say “This is the core thing of Judaism”, but what about all these other things in the Torah that don’t fit? “Ah, we’ll reinterpret it to make it fit”, but then you’re not really following God as much as following either yourself or what you think God really meant. Both of which are incredibly presumptuous.

Rabbi Josh Yuter, “Halakhic Process 26 – R. David Hartman and Religious Individualism”, Yutopia Podcast #121 (3 November 2013).

“You can follow the halakhic system and method of Rambam to disagree with Rambam on a specific issue”

For Maimonides, he acknowledged that the authority that he had to write the Mishneh Torah wasn’t from himself, it was really from the Talmud; in that, according to the language of the Rambam, you follow מי שהדעת נוטה – whomever convinces you the best.

By what does it mean the best? Having the best read of the Talmudic law; such that, if you have a better read of the Gemara than the Rambam, then you can disagree with the Rambam. Or, to put it another way, you can follow the halakhic system and method of Rambam to disagree with Rambam on a specific issue; meaning Rambam can write something is Jewish law – you can go back to the Gemara and say “Excuse me, Mr. Rambam, that’s not what the Gemara says.” or “We have a better text.” And, that way, even if people say, “Oh, aren’t you arguing with the Rambam?”, the answer is yes and no: you’re following the method, which is a lot more important than the details of the person, the individual.

So, Maimonides derived whatever authority he had only based on the Talmud, itself.

Rabbi Josh Yuter, “Halakhic Process 27 – Summary and Conclusions”, Yutopia Podcast #123 (10 November 2013).

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“the order in which Hanukkah candles are lit, underwent an evolution over many centuries…”

The lighting of Hanukkah candles is undoubtedly one of the most widespread and certainly the most recognized custom among the Jewish people.

Nevertheless most Jews are unaware that the ritual of the lighting and, more precisely, the order in which Hanukkah candles are lit, underwent an evolution over many centuries and that the order which has been adopted by the overwhelming majority of Jewish people was initially a marginal rite originating in France.

The emergence of the French rite was the result of an extraordinary combination of circumstances, including: the importance and prominence of R. Joseph Colon; the adoption of his ruling by R. Joseph Caro in Beit Yoseph and then in Shulhan Arukh; and the adoption of this rite by the Ari and his followers. The successful spread of Hassidism also contributed to the general acceptance of this rite in Eastern Europe, where other traditional rites still prevailed.

Today an overwhelming majority of Jews follow the French rite, while concurrently, the French Siddur, once considered as important as the German Siddur of Rhineland, died out completely and can only be found in rare books and manuscripts.

J. Jean Ajdler, “The Order of Lighting the Hanukkah Candles: The Evolution of a Custom and the Influence of the Publication of the Shulhan Arukh”, Hakirah 7 (Winter 2009), 205.

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The ultimate pesak is not bound to the peshat of any one Amora, even when we decide according to his view

Of course, the ultimate pesak is not bound to the peshat of any one Amora, even when we decide according to his view. A sugya can combine the views of one Amora with the principles of another in order to apply the halakhah in question to various situations. It is up to the poskei ha-dor to determine the relevant halakhah for their time. That is why halakhah ke-batra’ei, the halakhah follows the later opinion (within the limits of Masorah, of course). But if Talmud Torah is pursued with the proper derekh, or, more precisely, with one or more of the proper derakhim, then, as Rav Hutner זצוק”ל pointed out, the result is “a positive creation of new Torah values.”

Yaakov Elman, “Rava as Mara de-Atra in Mahoza”, Hakirah 11 (Spring 2011), 64-65.

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Jewish law teaches that we should always bring salt to our table and dip bread in salt before eating it

Jewish law teaches that we should always bring salt to our table and dip bread in salt before eating it. The general explanation given for this is that our table is like an altar; just as sacrifices always included salt, our meals are to be similarly meaningful and thus include salt as well. On a more down to earth level, having just said a blessing on the bread we salt it to make sure we enjoy it as we eat it with gratitude to God. This is similar to the Sefer HaChinuch’s idea that the salt is simply to make the sacrifice tasty.

Rabbi Neil Fleischmann, “Salt of the Earth”, The Jewish Week (23 March 2012), 52.

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The need for salt on sacrifices can be taken as a metaphorical lesson regarding our prayers

The need for salt on sacrifices can be taken as a metaphorical lesson regarding our prayers, which are like sacrifices before God. Our prayers should include genuine (salty) tears. We are told that, even in dark times of exile, “the gates of tears are never locked.” Just as salt can be destructive or constructive, we must remember that crying can be double-edged: manipulative tears can be a terrible thing; words of hope and prayer filled with genuine tears can lead to redemption on an individual and global scale.

Rabbi Neil Fleischmann, “Salt of the Earth”, The Jewish Week (23 March 2012), 52.

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Of course we perform our rituals “properly.” Otherwise they would not be rituals.

Sometimes religious ritual does approximate obsessive-compulsive disorder. An example is the way some medieval Jews interpreted the phrase, “in accordance with all its rules and rites.” The 11th-century rabbi, Joseph Tov Elem (or Bonfils, his French surname), incorporated the line into a pre-Passover synagogue poem that highlighted the importance of attending to every detail of Passover preparation. One verse of that larger composition still concludes our Haggadah: “The Passover celebration has concluded appropriately,” we say, “in accordance with all its rules and rites.”
Bonfils had internalized an attitude that pervaded Christian circles in his day: the idea that religious rites (like baptism and eucharist) achieve their intended impact as an automatic consequence of punctilious attention to detail. By contrast, skipping a single step or doing anything out of order renders the ritual null and void, so at roughly the same time that Bonfils was writing his poem, other rabbis were developing mnemonics to guide leaders of the seder in doing everything “just right.” We still have one such mnemonic today: Kadesh Urchatz, by Samuel ben-Solomon of Falaise. We chant it as the seder begins, just to anticipate what follows, but originally it was used to guarantee that the seder not be rendered worthless on account of an error in order.
In its time, this was indeed an obsessive-compulsive attitude, but it is not typical of the mainstream Jewish approach to ritual over the years. Even “in accordance with all its rules and rites” was interpreted to mean more than an obsessive concern for sacrificial detail. Both Rashi and Ramban, for example, think it also entails linking the ritual acts of the Passover sacrifice to the non-ritual aspects of the Passover message; eating unleavened bread, for instance, as a recollection of the haste with which Jews departed Egypt so long ago. Elsewhere, too, the impact of halachic action is not normally believed to follow magically as a consequence of doing it flawlessly.
Of course we perform our rituals “properly.” Otherwise they would not be rituals. But everything that matters deeply to us gets done that way: arranging an anniversary evening, perfecting a golf swing, posing for an important photograph, creating a beautiful dinner; these are all examples of making sure that details do not get overlooked. Far from being obsessive-compulsive behavior, these are instances of artistic enterprise.
The lesson of it all — from the biblical Passover sacrifice to the seder of today, and every other ritual we have, as well — is that human beings have an artistic impulse at our very core. We describe God’s original act of Creation as artistry, and we have been partners with God ever after. We love harmonized melodies, complementary color schemes, matching clothes, flowing language, and even coincidences that suggest patterns behind pure randomness.
We should conclude (contra Freud) that while people can use ritual to further their own obsessive-compulsive needs, most of us appreciate it for its artistry — the means to express ourselves through what is graceful, elegant, beautiful, and profound.

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, “Do the Rite Thing”, The Jewish Week (24 May 2013), 35.

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It will be fascinating to see what insights women bring to matters, and if a woman’s perspective affects how halakhah is decided

I agree that it isn’t “fair” that while men can be given the title “rabbi” simply by learning sections of Yoreh Deah, the women must do a lot more to be accepted. But that is required any time new developments come into place. I have been assured by people in the know that the day is coming when we will have first-rate women halakhists and talmudists. It will be fascinating to see what insights they bring to matters, and if a woman’s perspective affects how halakhah is decided. But we haven’t reached that day yet, and just as importantly, the Orthodox world as a whole is not yet ready for that day, as they have not yet become comfortable with the idea of a woman poseket.

Marc B. Shapiro, “Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 2”, The Seforim Blog (25 March 2012) {http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/03/answers-to-quiz-questions-and-other.html}

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There is no mention of bringing anything niddah-related to a rabbi in the Meam Loez

R. Moshe Maimon called my attention to the Meam Loez’s discussion of the laws of niddah, addressed to both men and women, and there is no mention there of bringing anything to the rabbi. This omission was rectified by R. Aryeh Kaplan, who in his translation (vol. 1, p. 136) adds: “When in doubt, a competent rabbi should be consulted.”

Marc B. Shapiro, “Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 2”, The Seforim Blog (25 March 2012), n. 2 {http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/03/answers-to-quiz-questions-and-other.html}

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In Yemen and in some of the Sephardic world there was never a concept of asking a rabbi intimate niddah questions

I think many will find interesting that in Yemen and in some of the Sephardic world there was never a concept of asking a rabbi intimate niddah questions. This was because the women were embarrassed to do so, seeing it as “untzniusdik”. I mention this only because I have heard rabbis say that in truth there are no tzeniut issues with this, and women shouldn’t be embarrassed. They make it seem that it is only due to modern values that all of a sudden this sort of thing is uncomfortable for women. This is clearly not the case, as we see from what happened in the Yemenite and some of Sephardic worlds, hardly centers of modernity. (I am only speaking of the historical reality, not the wisdom of the Yemenite and Sephardic approaches, which usually meant that any doubt would be assumed to render the woman impure.)

Marc B. Shapiro, “Answers to Quiz Questions and Other Comments, part 2”, The Seforim Blog (25 March 2012), n. 2 {http://seforim.blogspot.com/2012/03/answers-to-quiz-questions-and-other.html}