Simple conservatives
To the Rabbi, peace be upon you.
In the first lesson of the series “Innovation, Conservatism, and Tradition,” you presented two apparent advantages of the “simplistic conservatives,” and refuted them:
(1)
They maintain the existing provisions.
The negative: If one interprets the instructions as the “midrashic conservatives” interpret them, the Pashtahim *do not* preserve the instructions.
(2)
They are less suspicious because their path is less comfortable, less lazy.
The negative: Their way is more intellectually lazy
So far, it’s a 2-2 draw, or more accurately 0-0 because the arguments have essentially been nullified.
Beyond that, (pardon the paraphrase) the midrash has the advantage of plausibility.
1-0 for the Midrashites
I thought of another advantage of the simplistic ones:
Let’s say (in your example) that there was an explicit instruction from the group’s fathers in this language: “Always wear swimsuits.” It is true that one could demand the instruction and say “The most common: Always wear what is appropriate for the weather, such as swimsuits in our weather.”
But then the simplists can say: “It is true that your understanding is more reasonable, but if this was the intention of the fathers, why not tell us the instruction more clearly? Why not say “Always wear what is appropriate for the weather” instead of “Always wear swimsuits”?”
Didn’t they reach a kind of 1-1 draw? Meaning that now one must exercise judgment between the reasonableness of the reason and the improbability of the change in language in order to decide whether the midrashim are right or not?
I think not. It depends on the context. But of course sometimes there is an interpretive advantage to simplistic and sometimes not. Everything according to what it is.
By the way, the balance you are making here is not on the same level. Advantage 2 is psychological. It does not give more points to the truthfulness of the conservative interpretation. Only the advantage of truth is a relevant advantage for this. Indeed, the interpretive consideration is also on the same level. This in itself brings us to a situation of interpretive advantage from the language of the teaching (for the simpletons) versus an advantage from the interpretation (for the midrashic scholars), and this is precisely the dilemma of pushing the language or the interpretation.
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