maaseh avot siman lebanim

Avodah
1

We are supposed to learn how to act from the avot.

The problem is that we frequently have our preconceived notions and then

put them into the avot rather than the reverse.

Below is an example I recently saw (from the har etzion site)

We all know the aggadah of the burial of Yaakov, the fight with Esav and

finally the deaf Chushin the son of Dan kills Esav

explanation #1 - The sons of Jacob didn't know how to handle the challenge

of Esav and argues with him but Esav was more clever. Chushin who was deaf

understood the "real" Esav and understood the resultant Chilul Hashem. So

he acts without considering the reactions to his act to claim the rights of

the descendants of Yaakov

explanation #2 - There was no need for the disagreement between Esav and

the sons of Jacob to involve murder. It could have been solved by friendly

negotiations by showing Jacob's legal right to Maarat HaMachpela. Instead

there are "deaf" people who rush to action before all peaceful ways are

followed. Rikvah who fought to prevent the fight between Yaakov and Esav

now loses both of them the same day.

There is no way to decide between these alternatives sometimes the

questions are stronger than the answers

2

explanation #2 - There was no need for the disagreement between Esav and
the sons of Jacob to involve murder.

What murder? Esav was holding up Yaacov's funeral. He had no right
to do that, and Yaacov's family had no need to put up with it. Esav
of course knew very well that he'd sold the plot, and was therefore
in the wrong. He just supposed, correctly, that they would not have
thought to bring the contract with them.

It could have been solved by friendly negotiations by showing Jacob's
legal right to Maarat HaMachpela.

And in the meantime Yaacov is just lying there waiting, which is a
bizayon. To Chushim that was not acceptable, so he took direct action
and the funeral was able to proceed.

There is no way to decide between these alternatives

There certainly is. The conclusion of the episode is that Yaacov saw
Esav's blood on his feet, and laughed. What more is needed to show
that Chushim was right?

3

R' Eli Turkel wrote:

We all know the aggadah of the burial of Yaakov, the fight with Esav and
finally the deaf Chushin the son of Dan kills Esav

explanation #1 - The sons of Jacob didn't know how to handle the challenge
of Esav and argues with him but Esav was more clever. Chushin who was deaf
understood the "real" Esav and understood the resultant Chilul Hashem. So
he acts without considering the reactions to his act to claim the rights of
the descendants of Yaakov

explanation #2 - There was no need for the disagreement between Esav and
the sons of Jacob to involve murder. It could have been solved by friendly
negotiations by showing Jacob's legal right to Maarat HaMachpela. Instead
there are "deaf" people who rush to action before all peaceful ways are
followed. Rikvah who fought to prevent the fight between Yaakov and Esav
now loses both of them the same day.

There is no way to decide between these alternatives sometimes the
questions are stronger than the answers--
Eli Turkel

There is a way to decide between these alternatives. Look for earlier
sources or commentators -- earlier than the 21st century. We moderns can
speculate but can't really make up our own meforshim based on nothing but our
own intuition. You need sources, precedents.

Your explanation #1 is close to the classic explanation. While the sons of
Yakov were arguing with Esav about who has the rights to Me'aras
Hamachpela, Chushim ran back to Egypt and fetched the original shtar. (However I do
not understand the last sentence of that paragraph -- you wrote, Chushim
"acts without considering the reactions to his act to claim the rights of the
descendants of Yaakov." I don't know if "he acts without considering...."
is an implied criticism of Chushim, and I don't understand "to claim the
rights of the descendants of Yaakov" at all.)

Your explanation #2 has a totally modern "shmeck." I'd like to see any
Chumash commentator who says anything similar to that.

--Toby Katz
t613k@aol.com
..

4

"> explanation #2 - There was no need for the disagreement between Esav

and the sons of Jacob to involve murder.

What murder? Esav was holding up Yaacov's funeral. He had no right to do that, and Yaacov's family had no need to put up with it. Esav of course knew very well that he'd sold the plot, and was therefore in the wrong. He just supposed, correctly, that they would not have thought to bring the contract with them."

I had no idea that holding up a funeral was a capital crime.

More importantly, though, I think that RET's comment that there is no way to decide between the alternatives can be looked ta somewhat differently. I don't see this as alternatives in the sense that one explanation of the story is correct and one not. Rather, since we're speaking about a aggadah, not text, whose purpose is to teach lessons and not to tell us what actually happened, the lesson the rabbis are teaching us with this intentionally ambivalent story is that rash action may sometimes be necessary and sometimes precipitous and it's difficult to know at the time which is the case. People taking, or considering taking, such actions, therefore, must always be cognizant of these two possibilities and thus use, as best as they can, considered judgment. Being men and not God, of course, means we won't know which alternative applied to a particular case until, in most cases, it's too late.
Joseph

5

....The conclusion of the episode is that Yaacov saw
Esav's blood on his feet, and laughed. What more is needed to show
that Chushim was right?

6

From: Toby Katz at < t613k@aol.com>

There is a way to decide between these alternatives. Look for earlier
sources or commentators -- earlier than the 21st century. We moderns can
speculate but can't really make up our own meforshim based on nothing but
our own intuition. You need sources, precedents.

I guess you don't read much of Rav Yoel Bin Nun & Rav Elchanan Samet.
Where does chidush come into play? Is that not one of the main goals of
learning, that separate the talmud chacham from the rest?

Saul

7

In a message dated 11/25/2015 3:29:21 P.M. EST, saulguberman@gmail.com writes:

From: Toby Katz at <t613k@aol.com>

There is a way to decide between these alternatives. Look for earlier
sources or commentators -- earlier than the 21st century. We moderns can
speculate but can't really make up our own meforshim based on nothing but
our own intuition. You need sources, precedents.

I guess you don't read much of Rav Yoel Bin Nun & Rav Elchanan Samet.
Where does chidush come into play? Is that not one of the main goals of
learning, that separate the talmud chacham from the rest?

You can only base chiddushim on /something/ not on /nothing./ If you want
to make Chushim into a bad guy instead of a good guy, you have to have some
kind of a source.

--Toby Katz
t613k@aol.com

8

I've never heard of this. Where is it written?

In the same place where the rest of the story is written. Sotah 13a.
It's the conclusion of the story.

Could you fill in the rest of the story? Yakov saw Esav's blood on
whose feet -- Esav's feet or Yakov's feet?

Yaacov's feet.

Yakov saw? Yakov laughed? When -- after he had died?!

Yes. Yaacov, after he had been dead for 70 days, and had been
embalmed by the Egyptian methods which involved removing his internal
organs, opened his eyes, saw Esav's blood on his feet, and laughed,
as the pasuk says "The tzadik will rejoice when he sees revenge, and
washes his feet in the rasha's blood".

9

: You can only base chiddushim on /something/ not on /nothing./ If you want
: to make Chushim into a bad guy instead of a good guy, you have to have some
: kind of a source.

I would borrow RYBS's chiluq between shinui and chidush WRT halakhah:

Shinui runs counter to mesorah, chidush flows in the same direction,
but continues it further.

I do not know what this means where mesorah is silent. The more one knows
of mesorah, and the more one is immersed in its culture, the less often
one would think it actualy is entirely silent.

WRT aggadita too... We are more culturally removed by the authors of
the aggadita, and therefore less equipped to unpack the lesson out of
the story.

So here, I would end up agreeing with RnTK -- since there are voices
who better hear Chazal's way of thinking who assumed Chushim did the
right thing, the proposal to villainize his action needs some kind of
counter-source, something that implies the momentum behind your idea
already existed.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

10

I agree, and would add that the rishonim likewise guide us in the general
direction of understanding Chazal (and pesukim and general Jewish thought
and ideology).

Zvi Lampel

11

: I agree, and would add that the rishonim likewise guide us in the general
: direction of understanding Chazal (and pesukim and general Jewish thought
: and ideology).

Except WRT pesuqim, where you have pashtanim offering peshatim that ignore
both Chazal's derashos and sometimes their peshatim as well. I think this
is less and less true the further one gets from pure TSBP.

As for the rishonim's guidance... I spoke in the metaphor of momentum,
not inertia, how the TSBP is flowing down the generations, not a snapshot.

From <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/postmodernism-and-mesorah&gt;:

   ...
   So while the classical academic tried to find the original intent of
   the text, the postmodern found this impossible and therefore doesn't
   try. Instead, he looks to see what social constructs the text implies
   for the primary purpose of questioning it.
   ...

   Mesorah is a living tradition of a development of ideas. The Oral Torah
   is oral, a dialog across the generations. If we see a quote in the
   gemara from Rav Yochanan, we might be curious about the historical
   intent of Rav Yochanan. But in terms of Torah, important to us than
   what R' Yochanan's original intent is what R' Ashi thought that intent
   was, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of what the
   Rosh and the Rambam understood R' Ashi's meaning to be, which in turn
   can only be understood through the eyes of the Shaagas Aryeh and R'
   Chaim Brisker. That is the true meaning, in terms of Torah, of Rav
   Yoachanan's statement.

   Definitionally, talmud Torah is entering the stream. Not seeing a
   statement as a point to isolate in time and space, but as a being
   with a current that runs through history from creation to redemption.

FWIW, I also relate this to the Qetzos identifying Torah's Eitz
Chaim with the "emes mei'aretz tatzmiach" that I mentioned recently
on another thread.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

12

: I agree, and would add that the rishonim likewise guide us in the general
: direction of understanding Chazal (and pesukim and general Jewish thought
: and ideology).

Except WRT pesuqim, where you have pashtanim offering peshatim that ignore
both Chazal's derashos and sometimes their peshatim as well.

This is not an exception, because we were speaking in the context of what you called ''shinui'' vs. ''chiddush," and I used the wording ''general direction,'' in accord as well with RET's wording of ''making a bad guy into a good guy.''

  I think this
is less and less true the further one gets from pure TSBP.

Not sure what you mean by that.

As for the rishonim's guidance... I spoke in the metaphor of momentum,
not inertia,

These are physics terms, and I don't understand how they apply to our subject. (Don't ask me to explain what they mean in physics, either...)

  how the TSBP is flowing down the generations, not a snapshot.

Deciphering original intent is the initial objective. The assumption is that ''what R' Ashi thought that intent
    was, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of what the
    Rosh and the Rambam understood R' Ashi's meaning to be'' is an accurate analysis of what Rav Yochonon's historical intent was. What to do with the results arrived at when allegedly accurate new and contradicing information appears is another story.

Zvi Lampel

13

I used the wording ''general direction,'' in accord as well with RET's
wording of ''making a bad guy into a good guy.''

Make ''RET's" RbTK's.

14

:> Except WRT pesuqim, where you have pashtanim offering peshatim that ignore
:> both Chazal's derashos and sometimes their peshatim as well.

: This is not an exception...

Nor is it a pasuq.

:> I think this
:> is less and less true the further one gets from pure TSBP.

: Not sure what you mean by that.

I mean that a number of the rishonim who give pesat in Tanakh are
perfectly willing to translate and/or explain the pasuq differently than
the gemara did.

The notion of chiddush vs shinui appears to be a TSBP thing. When dealing
with peshat, it doesn't necessarily apply. Which to my mind makes sense.
TSBP is be'al peh in order to be a process; the rules of the process
are specifically for TSBP. For TSBP, like any other exploration of fact,
you try your best to find truth, and are not bound by rules of process.

:> As for the rishonim's guidance... I spoke in the metaphor of momentum,
:> not inertia,

: These are physics terms, and I don't understand how they apply to
: our subject...

Momentum is like your invoking direction, except that momentum also
includes speed and mass. I meant the mashel that in cases where there
is some tolerance in direction, how much leeway you take depends on
how weighty the matter is. And, the bigger the chiddush, the slower you
ought to take things.

: either...)

:> how the TSBP is flowing down the generations, not a snapshot.

: Deciphering original intent is the initial objective...

So do you believe that when two talmidim of Rav Yochanan argue about what
he meant, not only is one historically wrong, his position isn't Torah
either, no eilu va'eilu, and the SA might be wrong in an absolue sense?

Do the dynamics of dispute only apply to the first time any din deOraisa
is ever debated?

And what about cases where the intent isn't speicifc enough to cover one
understanding over the other? How we apply a gemara about nitzotzos or
gacheles shel mateches to electrical appliances is unlikely to depend
on a detail of Shemu'el's intent -- he likely had nothing in minde
relevant. Rather, it's how those details got filled in during the
centuries since.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

15

Just because he may have misremembered what R Yochanan said doesn't have
to mean that the opinion he misattributed to him is wrong. Perhaps
R Yochanan saw one aspect of retzon haborei, and this student saw another
(which was why he thought that was what R Yochanan meant). And perhaps
R Yochanan was not mechaven to the way the retzon haborei is supposed
to be expressed in the limited world of action, and the student was.

16

.. when two talmidim of Rav Yochanan argue about what he meant,...

Just because he may have misremembered what R Yochanan said doesn't have
to mean that the opinion he misattributed to him is wrong. ...

The Rambam (Hakdama L'Payrush haMishnayos) considers it an insult
to Chazal to suggest that any of the [final] opinions [after all
the shakla vtarya] held by the balaei plugta were due to one of them
misremembering. They agreed as to what the person they quoted said or did,
but disagreed in how to interpret it. By inserting the close-quotation
marks in the right places, the parts of passages that seem to have
talmidim quoting their rebbeim in opposing ways can be seen to be
merely interpretations of the same memra. And sometimes when someone
declares that someone "said" something, he can mean that this was his
interpretation of that person's actions or other statement.

RMB:

Except WRT pesuqim, where you have pashtanim offering peshatim that ignore
both Chazal's derashos and sometimes their peshatim as well.

ZL:

This is not an exception...

RMB:

Nor is it a pasuq.

Let's review. RnTK (referring to Chushim) submitted that if Chazal
understood someone to be a good guy, it is proper to follow that
attitude. You agreed to this, invoking chiddush vs shinui stated
by halachic mesorah, and writing, "WRT aggadita too... We are more
culturally removed by the authors of the aggadita, and therefore less
equipped to unpack the lesson out of the story...[so] since there are
voices who better hear Chazal's way of thinking who assumed Chushim did
the right thing, the proposal to villainize his action needs some kind
of counter-source, something that implies the momentum behind your idea
already existed.

To which I agreed, adding that this attitude extends to our acceptance
of how rishonim understand Chazal. Parenthetically, I also added that
this attitude extends to how rishonim understood pesukim. I.e. they give
us the general attitude in which to understand both Chazal and pesukim.

But you want to distinguish between rishonim on pesukim and Chazal on
Aggadita. And you explained,

I mean that a number of the rishonim who give peshat in Tanakh are
perfectly willing to translate and/or explain the pasuq differently than
the gemara did.

So what happened to the sevara behind the sevara that those who are
"more culturally removed by [from] the authors of the aggadita... [are]
therefore less equipped to unpack the lesson out of the story"?
Why should we and the rishonim apply this attitude only to what Chazal
say about things not written in the Torah, and not to things Chazal
say about what is written in the Torah? (And anyway, is the matter of
Chushim not something to do with what is written in the Torah?)

Yes, there is a number (one and two are also numbers) of rishonim who say
peshat is other than what a given memra Chazal says. Ibn Ezra comes to
mind. But when he does so, he either says "im kaballa hu, nekabel," or
he holds the memra is a daas yachid, whereas the rabbim would understand
peshat his way, or he has a alternate memra Chazal to support himself,
or he holds that despite appearances, the memra was not meant as peshat
but as drash, and Chazal must have actually held peshat to be as he
says. Point being, the rishonim are not disagreeing with what Chazal as
a body actually held. And more to my point, the rishonim are guiding us
in how to understand Chazal.

RMB:

how the TSBP is flowing down the generations, not a snapshot

ZL:

Deciphering original intent is the initial objective...

RMB:

So do you believe that when two talmidim of Rav Yochanan argue about
what he meant, not only is one historically wrong, his position isn't
Torah either, no eilu va'eilu,

No, it is Torah, and it is eilu v'eilu in the sense that the rishonim
explain that concept. Please note that I referred to the initial
objective, and what I went on to say after that.

RMB:

...and the SA might be wrong in an absolute sense?

Depends what you mean by "absolute sense." You agree one of them
is wrong is the historic sense. In what matters for how we conduct
ourselves, what Hashem wants us to do, of course we follow what the
darkei pesak conclude.

The rishonim offer several explanations of "eilu v'eilu," but those who
explain what the phrase means are unanimous in rejecting the logically
absurd idea that contradicting shittos about the law in the exact same
case match Hashem's original intent in that case.

RMB:

Do the dynamics of dispute only apply to the first time any din deOraisa
is ever debated?

Thanks for the plug, but I don't understand your point.

RMB:

And what about cases where the intent isn't specific enough to cover one
understanding over the other? How we apply a gemara about nitzotzos or
gacheles shel mateches to electrical appliances is unlikely to depend on
a detail of Shemu'el's intent -- he likely had nothing in minde relevant.

No? Don't the poskim decide the law by analyzing what the Talmud's gedarim
are, and equating to it the essential properties of the modern situation?
Do you hold that all such discussions by the poskim, and the Amoraim's
discussions about new situations, in which they are claiming to be
learning from their predecessors' statements going back to the aerliest
ones and avoiding kushyas from them, are disingenuous?

Zvi Lampel

17

We are supposed to learn how to act from the avot.
The problem is that we frequently we have opposite mefarshim on what
happened

I gave one example previously from the story of Chushim and the burial of
Yaakov

Another example is from this past week's parsha: Yaakov meets Esav and
sends him various gifts and finally prostates himself before Yaakov
I have seen 3 approaches to this story
1) We see how far one should go to avoid possible bloodshed
2) Yaakov's bowing down to Esav was wrong and a chillul hashem
3) Yaakov should not have started with contacting Esav perhaps had he gone
straight to Canaan Esav would not have reacted. Why look for trouble

18

: We are supposed to learn how to act from the avot.

: The problem is that we frequently we have opposite mefarshim on what
: happened

Meaning, we are supposed to learn how to act from how the avos are
portrayed, which is all we really know about how they act.

This "problem" is true all over halakhah; why should this be any more
immune to machloqes? We do what we always do: find which of the paths
up the Har Hashem is going to be ours, and follow it. In terms of the
lessons drawn, eilu va'eilu divrei E-lokim Chaim.