Question

When I study a text—for example, a particular Talmudic passage or a passage in Maimonides—what exactly is supposed to be my goal? To arrive at Maimonides’ approach and what the text in front of me meant, or to arrive at some understanding—an understanding that will be mine—based on what I learn from the text? I feel as though with every text, anyone can really come along and interpret it however he wants. Any text can be fitted to whatever interpretation one wants. (You say this especially about the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), but it seems to me that in truth you can say this about the Talmud and the interpretation of the Oral Torah as well! Forty-nine ways to declare impure, forty-nine ways to declare pure. I’m reminded of something: there was a judge in Paris, a well-known prodigy, Rabbi Nissim Revivo, and privately of course, the joke was that when people asked him personal questions he would answer, “Do you want it to be forbidden or permitted?” Haha—but behind the joke I feel there really is an element of truth.)
 When I read later authorities (Acharonim), I feel as though they present their own approach in the words of the text they came to interpret. I feel that in the end, before one later authority even enters the text, he already has his own method and his own preconception, and he only comes to fit them together with the texts.
I can’t manage to define and narrow the question any better, but I’m asking it anyway…