Хагига 10: Мишна с плавающей точкой.

[nedosionist]

В развитие предыдущей темы. Точка в этой Мишне (см. текст ниже, после “BUT MANY LAWS.”) - поставлена как в классическом “Казнить нельзя помиловать”; но еще лучше. О нее спотыкаешься, как о камень лежащий посреди дороги, и перечитываешь текст с недоумением. Откуда это здесь?

Comments

[brotherinlaw]

So then, what can we learn from the last clause of the Mishna under your 2nd approach?
First, I must re-stress that there is no substantial difference between 1 and 2. Such a difference would only be there if 1 meant an intended ambiguity, such as to spook off the amhaarets and to provide the initiated elite with intellectual food. I strongly disbelieve such an Intent for Mishna (in Scripture, there may be intended ambiguities so as to constructively address different valid understandings, as in the Cain story and many others, but we must leave it out here); therefore Mishna ambiguities (1) result from subjective (scribal errors etc.) or objective (language change etc.) factors, like what we call text corruption (2).
Now, what can we learn...? The Tannaim posed the same question for the "rebellious son" commandment, which they nullified from the bench (E. Berkovits, Not in Heaven). Here, I would not go as far as they did but would follow their general idea: the Mishna doubtless meant something important; ponder on this matter (I did, which resulted in my amateurish conjecture); but while pondering don't unleash your imagination so as to question the established truths such as the essential nature of ALL Torah commandments.

The link above ("addressed") is not working.

clarifying applications ... give you as a reader a feel of my drash, instead of your pshat - Yes. But this can be avoided if the author generously suppresses his drash when dealing with the pshat.

[nedosionist]

meant an intended ambiguity, such as to spook off the amhaarets and to provide the initiated elite with intellectual food
Yammy! :) I guess that's pretty close, except we may hope against odds that it may still be possible to self-initiate, with the right intent, reliable method and some Help.

A problem that you're trying to imagine to explain away Mishna, with assorted ways of text corruption, may indeed be serious when we're merely guessing at the content of a single copy of a sacred infallible text. But you're postulating a corruption between Tannaim and Amoraim, when Mishna existed in multiple copies, and on this hypothesis it was compiled knowingly with a clear error. Not a typo, but an error going to the core, in claiming that not all laws are equal whereas, of course, everybody knows they are. Why would that be likely? Then Gemara just 1) sarcastically 2) shrugs this off. Would you care to find/cite other places where this happens!?

Interestingly, however, the attitude towards interpreting Mishna might have differed between Babylon and Jerusalem. That might help explain that shift toward finitization, that we observe towards Middle Ages.

addressed earlier - here down below

[brotherinlaw]

I guess that's pretty close, except we may hope against odds that it may still be possible to self-initiate, with the right intent, reliable method and some Help. Well, the point is that the elitist view (in whatever form) is erroneous. This judgment is not IMHO, for it is not mine (though I do agree) but tradition's. It is the judgment of Hillel's school over Shamai's school (see e.g. r. Telushkin's Hillel); then, throughout rabbinical tradition, the amhaarets ignorance was considered a problem to solve, not a fact to accept. Even the elitist Maimonides, even in MN, kept along this line. Of dire necessity, it was not so in Temple Judaism, hence the priestly elite which eventually degenerated into the Sadducees, and hence the Korah story. But even before Hillel, Korah was vindicated, so to say. Btw: as you once showed me, there is a legitimate pshat that Korah did NOT end up in the pit; my drash: it is the hint to the above. No Jews are "more equal." Btw2: as Kugel correctly observes, the core of the mishpatim is noticeably similar to the Hamurabi code. One of the many things he fails to observe is that while Hamurabi's laws were different for the upper and lower classes (different punishments for the same offense), such discrimination is utterly alien to the mishpatim.

A problem that you're ... ... Would you care to find/cite other places where this happens!? All right, now you finally presented a textologically valid line of argument;) True, our Mishna's problem is not a routine occurrence. How could it arise? One thing to remember is that the scribal community was much broader than the Sages', and it included people who might well be inaccurate even in the fundamentals. More important, the continuity was nearly broken by the Roman Great Depression of the 3rd century, which lasted some 70 years and whose impact throughout the Empire was devastating (see e.g. Gedaliah Alon, Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age). As for similar examples, we should rather ask professionals. The corpus of the text is not of the amateur's scale.

[nedosionist]

Would you care to find/cite other places ... a textologically valid line of argument ... rather ask professionals
Actually I mumbled this very point, even though it is a valid argument. Restatement: Afaik, Gemara simply does not 1) sarcastically 2) shrugs Mishna off. Now you're right, that the corpus of the text, is huge and therefore I reserve the possibility of unusual etc., so I'd be curious if you or someone were able to show me otherwise. (I implied the first point, and it came across a bit harder.) I didn't mean to lay a discovery burden on you here, since healthy dose of ignorance and humility can be assumed in our discussions. :))

But barring this my first point stands - we can assume this doesn't happen; we could imagine it happening, but there's no evidence for that. Hence, you didn't disparage Mishna, of course, but you've imagined an attitude of Amoraim which would be close, and highly unlikely. ("Double affirmative cannot mean a negation." - "Yeah, right."). Again, I'm ok with such blasphemy here :), but the point is - your preferred reading depends on it, and thus faulty. May be you'd like to revisit the Gemara, and the alternatives you laid out?

Scribal errors etc. are irrelevant here, as I said just before: you're claiming a fundamental substantive error, there were multiple sources, there was a process of compilation, and Gemara in general purports to clarify established Oral tradition.

Shabbat Shalom.

[brotherinlaw]

sarcastically: the implied sarcasm of the Gemara is obviously not directed towards the Mishna statement but to those readers who rush to accept it at its face value.

Scribal errors etc. are irrelevant here - so they are relevant to all written traditions but irrelevant to ours. This leaves us without commonsensical grounds.

healthy dose of ignorance and humility can be assumed in our discussions - which assumption is belied by this very discussion. Without a proper knowledge of what the Talmud is we are reduced to arguing on what it should be. (In other words, reduced to fencing, if you excuse this pun.) I therefore suspend discussing this Mishna/Gemara until I a obtain some external scholarly help.

[nedosionist]

implied sarcasm of the Gemara .. to those readers who rush to accept it at its face value
Well, as opposed to what? ;)

so they are relevant to all written traditions but irrelevant to ours
I've already outlined the differences here. Parallel processing can reliably eliminate random noise.

until I a obtain some external scholarly help
Surely, extra knowledge would help. But, - in both of these posts I'm addressing pshat construction. If you end up having to rely on drash commentary to form even basic grammatical understanding of what is being said, then it defeats the purpose: you effectively deny that pshat is readable. My reading, and your 1st alternative still stand.

We can continue fencing using weapons of your choice and time of your convenience. :)

[brotherinlaw]

I've already outlined the differences here. A reference to your previous argument does not make it more valid, nor does it invalidate my objections. (Now we are going circles explicitly - some progress:-/)

as opposed to what? to seeing an unsolved textual problem.

[brotherinlaw]

If you end up having to rely on drash commentary to form even basic grammatical understanding I wish I knew why a scholarly help should be a priori suspected of abuse of scholarship. Let me, rather, reveal my own (a posteriori) suspicion about your post: it (unwittingly) attempts to smuggle an improper drash (contra "акцент делается на ритуалы и гражданское право; это подход 'иудаизм - это не религия'") under the cover of the "discovery" of a nonexistent intended ambiguity.

[nedosionist]

Why, quite wittingly, Вы уместно видите связь между этими постами. :) Но в данном случае contra не моя, а Хазаль. ;)

Oк, будем ждать Вашу ученую кавалерию. :)

[brotherinlaw]

не моя, а Хазаль. ;) It may be soothing to know that you have dignified predecessors in such erring:) Averroes liked to claim that in his dead-end development of peripatetic philosophy he was merely repeating Aristotle himself.

external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

У нас есть три основных варианта интерпретации этой мишны (в основном последней фразы, и гемары):
1. Все законы Торы равны, Мишна не права/искажена, гемара ее поправляет.
2. Какие-то законы важнее, и это третья группа.
3. Какие-то законы важнее, и это не третья группа (т.з. поста).

Традиционная т.з. близка к Вашей, если Вам нужна кавалерия. :) Собственно, в этом-то и проблема. ;))
Вторая позиция несколько аргументирована, напр. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, p.86, fn.8 p.190. У него есть дальнейшие ссылки.

Возможно, переход от первой позиции ко второй (как промежуточный шаг) проще, чем сразу к третьей.

Re: external scholarly help

[brotherinlaw]

2 and 3 are (a) utterly foreign to the tradition and (b) have nothing to do with the topic considered in the Mishna, which is the relative amount of the scriptural basis for different groups of commandments, NOT the relative importance of those groups. Jaffee, too, is within the scriptural basis theme and not the "importance" theme. Your identification of his position with 2 is thus incorrect. E.g.: "In any event, the real point comes at the end: 8. Abba Yose b. Hanan says: these eight topics of Torah are the essence of the halakot (/M. Hag.1:8.4)."

However, 1 is not necessarily true. The Mishna's statement may mean "These [the last group of laws] constitute the bulk of the corpus of Pentateuch laws." This differs from my uneducated guess, perhaps favorably, but not essentially. In any event, a conjecture of this kind is largely consistent with both your references. The implication is that studying this last group of laws can be done on the basis of the Pentateuch itself. (Your 1st reference, though it quotes the Gemara correction (?) of the Mishna, implicitly accepts this or a similar conjecture: "for a doubt in Hilchos Ohalos, he should look in the Mishnah, and for a doubt in Hilchos Nega'im, he should look in the Torah".)

Re: external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

The implication is that studying this last group of laws can be done on the basis of the Pentateuch itself.
"for a doubt in Hilchos Ohalos, he should look in the Mishnah, and for a doubt in Hilchos Nega'im, he should look in the Torah".
So, would you be willing to accept this thesis as a shared working hypothesis, as a move forward? :)

Re: external scholarly help

[brotherinlaw]

This is not a thesis, still less a hypothesis, but a statement of the fact. I doubt a move forward can be achieved so cheaply:\

Re: external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

If you are in doubt about anything concerning leprosy-signs search the Bible, but if you are in doubt about anything concerning tent-covering search the Mishnah.
1. Would you say that this is how it's done nowadays? Does Tradition actually keep following this fact/guidance?
2. Where does the authority of Mishna seemingly independent from the Scripture comes from?
3. Notice that your own phrasing that I cited just above is consistent with Soncino, and Ok; but daf-yomi makes an important (and improper) typical pseudo-synonymic substitution.
4. Does the Mishna as written equates these two (re: 2-3 here)?

5. R. Papa said: It means as follows: Leprosy-signs have considerable Scriptural basis and few laws, tent-covering has scant Scriptural basis and many laws.
Based on this phrase, and Mishna, to which groups of laws (1-3) in the Mishna you'd allocate respectfully leprosy-signs and tent-covering?

One spoon of sugar little fact goes a long, long way. :) That's just for starters.

fencing

[nedosionist]

the elitist view (in whatever form) is erroneous
Not quite. I mostly agree, that it is misguided as a normative stand, but it was (unfortunately) accurate as a positive description: it was not so in Temple Judaism, hence the priestly elite which eventually degenerated into the Sadducees. And it was not so for the next 2kyrs.

intended ambiguity, such as to spook off the amhaarets
Let me try this again.
Ambiguity - By now I'm sure it is there, generally ubiquitous, and in this section as well. The subjective proof being by construction - recovery of meaning. ;))

Intended - Most likely. Gemara is notoriously tortured writing, it is highly unlikely just to be the simplest way they found to express their thoughts, and happen unintentionally. How much does one need to know to understand that coupling pronouns the way they do is inherently ambiguous, as is citing the same phrase with opposite meaning etc. Even worse, Gemara explains Mishna thus reducing ambiguity; this Mishnaic meaning was supposed to be understood by reader directly, as pshat; thus it is now and was then even more ambiguous. But much of that ambiguity is already in Chumash. ;)

to spook off the amhaarets
That I'm not quite sure, and in a way it's less important. Who did they conceal it from, using this intended ambiguity? This argument comes in several flavors. We can posit that They were obscuring Torah for outsiders in general (make a fence around Torah, Pirkei Avot 1:1). Tannaim might have more concerns with hostile goyim. It is less clear whom Chumashic ambiguity was intended against. The people/Amhaaretz/Cohen division that we discussed in Korah may well be relevant.

On the other hand, why? to provide the initiated elite with intellectual food, - would also be a reason good enough. :)