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From: Russell Hendel <rhendel@saber.towson.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 18:06:41 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Do new talmudic interpretations allow reassesment of Responsum

A while ago a new responsum on birth control was discovered from one of
the early authorities(Rishonim). The question was asked "In light of
this discovery can we reassess responsum of later authorities on the
grounds that 'had they known about this earlier responsum' they wouldn't
have said what they did?" I would like to posit a similar question in
the letter-perfect vs word-perfect transmission debate on the Torah.
Should a new interpretation of a talmudic aggadic passage that was
hitherto unknown change our assessments of psaks based on alternative
interpretations. Let us examine.

In discussing whether the transmission of the Torah is letter-perfect or
word-perfect I suggested that the Talmudic argument that "the Hebrew
pair DAROSH DARASH is the middle of the Torah in words" really means
that"DAROSH DARASH is the middle of all consecutive double word pairs".
Similarly the Torah forum article I referred to last time suggests that
the Talmudic statement that "The VAV of the Hebrew word GACHON is the
middle of the Torah in letters" means "The VAV of GACHON is the middle
of the JUMBO letters in the Torah (Certain letters in Torah scrolls are
written in Jumbo font and VAV-GACHON is the middle Jumbo letter) These
explanations come from a Russian emigree and were quoted in Torah forum.

I further suggested that the issues here were factual (are these the
middle or not) not issues of authority.

Avi Feldblum and Gilad Gevaryahu both responded. Avi suggested that even
if my assertions are factually correct nevertheless the real issue is
the legal obligations defined upon us by the chain of
authorities. True..but in light of the fact that we now understand a
Talmudic statement that we formerly didn't shouldn't we reassess which
of those authorities should be given priority.

Gilad cited (a) some other gmarrahs on "middles" (one of which I
explained above), (b the assertion that "Hendel's explanation could not
be correct because none of the commentaries state it"(But can't someone
today explain something that former authorities could not), (c) the
claim that my explaining one gmarrah does not suffice, rather I have to
explain all of them (but in any argument we weight both sides..I am
simply showing new arguments).

Gilad then calls my arguments *pilpul*. Certainly Gilad agrees that many
agadahs are explained by use ellipsis--all I did was say that MIDDLE
LETTER= MIDDLE OF BIG LETTERS, MIDDLE WORD=MIDDLE OF DOUBLE WORDS.

I therefore reopen the question but phrased in the manner that Avi
formulated it: Should a new explanation of an agaddic passage allow us
to reassess legal positions based on former alternative positions?

Russell Hendel; Moderator Rashi Is SImple; Math; Towson
http://www.shamash.org/rashi/