Q&A: A Question About Those Who Walk Among Those Who Stand
A Question About Those Who Walk Among Those Who Stand
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Thank you for the enlightening trilogy.
Regarding the third book, "Those Who Walk Among Those Who Stand," there is something in the book’s logic that isn’t entirely clear to me. After you discussed first-order and second-order halakhic ruling, you moved on to the theory of halakhic change. But for some reason, the basis for your discussion of the theory of halakhic change is Maimonides’ laws. Why is that? After all, as a first-order decisor (I understand that this is usually how you define yourself), I would have expected that in the first stage you would go directly to the sources in the Talmud or to direct reasoning, and not to one of the medieval authorities. Why do you rely on his rulings as the basis for the discussion rather than on sources from the Talmud? I would appreciate it if you could shed light on this point. It is of course possible that I missed your explanation in the book itself.
Answer
Here I rely on Maimonides as a summarizer of Jewish law. For every law in Maimonides, one could have brought the Talmudic source on which it is based. It is just a shortcut.
Beyond that, there is also a discussion here of “according to your own approach.” Even to those who advocate second-order halakhic ruling, I show that there is a second-order source for my theory of change.
Discussion on Answer
He certainly does. So what? It is a reasonable interpretation of the Talmudic passages. As I said, I am not relying on him here as an authoritative source.
Doesn’t Maimonides introduce his own interpretation or his own ruling into these laws?