debka_notion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
debka_notion) wrote2007-03-07 05:48 pm
debka_notion) wrote2007-03-07 05:48 pm
Mild Frustration, or On Keeping Your Word
A bit over a month ago, I asked one of my teachers for source materials on a particular halakhic issue because it is something popularly observed in certain significant parts of the Orthodox world, and by almost no one in the Conservative world, and I realized that I have no particular reasons for not observing it, although I also don't have any particular reasons for observing it. I just don't know so much about it in general, besides how it applies once one assumes that it is obligatory.
The teacher said the sources were primarily late enough that he didn't see reason to follow it, and promised to bring me sources the next week, and maybe to go over them in class (this class doesn't have such a set syllabus).
THe next week, no mention is made of the source materials. The week after that, we find out said teacher's grandfather had passed away recently. Clearly, I'm not going to bother him about some source materials.
But it's been a while, and he's made no mention of anything. So after class, I inquire about the source materials, and he a. didn't remember that he'd said he'd bring me sources, b. said he didn't really know about the topic, and c. said he was too busy to look into it and then referred me to a couple of books that would tell me why it Was required, when part of what I'd been asking him was why he thought that it wasn't. I'm a little miffed.
The teacher said the sources were primarily late enough that he didn't see reason to follow it, and promised to bring me sources the next week, and maybe to go over them in class (this class doesn't have such a set syllabus).
THe next week, no mention is made of the source materials. The week after that, we find out said teacher's grandfather had passed away recently. Clearly, I'm not going to bother him about some source materials.
But it's been a while, and he's made no mention of anything. So after class, I inquire about the source materials, and he a. didn't remember that he'd said he'd bring me sources, b. said he didn't really know about the topic, and c. said he was too busy to look into it and then referred me to a couple of books that would tell me why it Was required, when part of what I'd been asking him was why he thought that it wasn't. I'm a little miffed.
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Meaning what? I think I know what you mean, and that would be exactly what I need, but really am not quite sure to whom to turn around here yet.
I haven't yet read the essay, but the thesis thereof has certainly been conveyed in other reading I've done and to some extent in some of my coursework as well.
I think the background of this is the general concept that the older something is, the more force it has and the less one is allowed to contradict it- provided that it isn't some opinion that hasn't been followed since. I think people tend to focus on one side of that equation or the other and not on the balance or something- by which I mean that I know that there are other factors besides when a ruling first happened, but I'm not entirely sure what they Actually are. The whole idea of being strict or lenient for the sake of being strict or being lenient is an interesting one that I don't quite understand even when I fall into taking it (which is plenty often).
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I'm aware of the concept you're espousing, although it is contradicted (or modified) by halakha ke-vatraei. In practice, however, this "force" is a psychological/sociological one; the legal language of halakha is flexible enough to articulate whatever conclusion is necessary for the circumstances, it's just that in practice the aforementioned force attained by certain older rulings may make it impractical to abandon it, and occasionally even to modify it significantly. The question of "rediscovery" of abandoned practices is the flip side of that; it has lots of potential force but little practical force, and probably would not be invoked unless doing so filled some communal need (e.g., a need for consistency with a shitah that posited pure textual authority, or a need for the particular practice to be revived/enacted).
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