Cultural Influences in the Gemara
Hello Rabbi. As far as I know, it is generally agreed that every person is influenced, willingly or unwillingly, by the environment in which they live and the prevailing and accepted values of the time. In the framework of halakha, I understood that we usually ignore the periodical motivations and influences that had on the posek, etc. and refer to the body of his arguments – do they hold water or not? And in fact, the values of his period do not make any difference to us. My question is about sources of authority that in practice we do not dare to refer to the body of their arguments in criticism. What does the rabbinic rabbinate say, and perhaps even the first rabbinates? On the one hand, it is clear that some of the rulings of the rabbinic rabbinate sages also have a cultural context that has changed in our time. On the other hand, I do not know that many people, even very great ones, who really allow themselves to refer to the body of the arguments in the rabbinate, (i.e., to say that in their opinion the rabbinic rabbinate’s ruling does not hold water, or that they have another proposal for resolving a problem that has arisen – that would permit something that the rabbinic rabbinate forbade, etc.) The entire discussion is conducted from an acceptance of the authority of the rabbinic rabbinate sages and an interpretation and reference to their words. The problem is precisely in terms of cultural influences, which on the one hand clearly exist and on the other hand almost no one Does not address the body of the claims (and perhaps rightly so, because we study in their ‘ulpan’?) But what happens is that the halakha is left with perceptions that sometimes irritate the modern scholar because he suspects that they originate not from the direction of Scripture but from the values of the period of the G’m (as a dog, one can see the popular and trite topic of ‘attitude towards women’). What does the rabbi think? Is there a way to eliminate the influence of the environment of the posek in the G’m? Or is this an inevitable price that we are condemned to pay because we are further away from the status of Mount Sinai?
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Will these changes be halakhically binding?
Isn't a major B”D required to make such changes?
It depends on what changes. I will talk about this in detail in my book (the third in the trilogy).
Which book of yours are you talking about?
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%d7%94%d7%98%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%92%d7%99%d7%94-2/
See in the comments
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