Hello,

The question applies to each and every point of Jewish law.

If I go to a rabbi and ask him, “Can I light a lighter on the Sabbath?” and he answers no, he is answering based on things written before the world changed into what it is now. And maybe given the world as it is now, there is no longer any problem with lighting fire from a lighter, because it is a completely different type of ignition, or for a thousand other possible reasons, or because of some different kind of factor (not increasing exertion on Friday, not increasing divisions, or all kinds of other reasons that exist nowadays). And there is no one on the scale of a Tanna who can say he knows the entire Oral Torah and understands its depth and can be absolutely certain that it is forbidden even in the world as it is now, and that there is no factor of any kind that points otherwise.

In the few seconds I spent looking on YouTube for a clip from the old world, I got to this—

Daniel—hello,

It seems the ancients were more developed morally. When they fought, it was out of existential necessity. They didn’t spend their time looking for videos of violence and atrocities just to relieve boredom 🙂

The ability to harm others has also developed beyond all measure in the modern era. If ancient man had a club or a spear, modern man has developed weapons of mass destruction capable of harming millions.

It therefore seems that in our time, a person needs a more exacting yoke of commandments, to train him to restrain himself and refine his impulses.

With blessings,
The Noble Savage

Daniel,
We observe the instructions of the Torah, which is eternal, and these are interpreted in each generation according to changing circumstances. When there is a Sanhedrin, it determines in each generation what the binding interpretation is (and enacts the necessary ordinances and decrees). Unfortunately, for the last two thousand years we have been in a historical accident and have had no Sanhedrin. Therefore, in a considerable number of matters we remain attached to ancient interpretations.
Why not change? Mainly because of lack of authority. The concern about undermining the system when it operates without a supreme authoritative institution outweighs the interest in acting correctly. By the way, a consideration like this exists in other legal systems too, in various forms. But beyond that, in every generation people have made—and still do make, even if not enough—interpretations and adaptations within the limits of their authority. The fact is that there is discussion about using electricity on the Sabbath, something our ancestors never imagined. True, the discussion takes place within a framework established long ago (primary categories of labor and their derivatives), but these are principles that do not change so drastically, and therefore the errors there are not so great. The adaptations of abstract principles to circumstances enable us to preserve them appropriately for our time.
I do have criticism that this is not done enough, but the picture is not as extreme as you describe. And as noted, the alternative is the destruction of the entire system, and that is certainly worse.
And finally, the Tannaim and the great figures of earlier generations were not ministering angels. They were human beings like me and you, whose statements were made for their time and against the background of their time. We have people who are no less intelligent than they were, and perhaps more so.
You can easily see this from the very examples you yourself gave: kindling fire is an abstract principle that has nothing to do with the level of exertion. Therefore it carries over into adaptations for our generation (turning on a device with a switch), but is certainly still relevant. The same is true of Sabbath exertion, which also belongs today (with adaptation to the forms of exertion). Not to mention increasing divisions, which is very relevant in our day as well.
And the video you brought about war does not at all demonstrate what you wanted it to demonstrate. On the contrary: you can see there that human nature is not essentially different, and the workshop of the earth is one and the same. People still fight and kill as then, still divide into factions as then, and still kindle fire as then. Within the limits of adapting the principles and applying them to our day, the possibility of observing Jewish law definitely exists. As I said, not enough is being done in the adaptation processes, and I discussed this in the third book of my trilogy.

“And finally, the Tannaim and the great figures of earlier generations were not ministering angels. They were human beings like me and you, whose statements were made for their time and against the background of their time. We have people who are no less intelligent than they were, and perhaps more so”
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Like me and you????? No less intelligent and maybe more????? Do I really need to quote straightforward Talmudic passages on this???
Sabbath 112b — Rabbi Zeira said in the name of Rava bar Zimuna: “If the earlier ones were sons of angels, we are sons of men; and if the earlier ones were sons of men, we are like donkeys—and not like the donkey of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa or of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, but like ordinary donkeys.”

No, I do not mean that they were literally angels. Certainly they were human beings. But as Rabbi Yohanan said in Yoma 9b, “The fingernails of the earlier ones are better than the bellies of the later ones”… And when the Talmud illustrates in Sabbath 25b—Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: “Such was the custom of Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai: on the eve of Sabbath they would bring him a basin full of hot water, and he would wash his face, hands, and feet, and wrap himself and sit in fringed linen garments, and he looked like an angel of the Lord of Hosts”—that is not just some exaggerated metaphor like the exaggerations of our own day.
Whoever prayed properly on Yom Kippur and recited the liturgical poem about the Ten Martyrs of the Kingdom cannot fail to be overwhelmed by the tremendous holiness of Rabbi Ishmael, who ascended on high, etc.

Conclusion — Moed Katan 17a: Rabbi Yohanan said: What is the meaning of that which is written, “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek Torah from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts” (Malachi 2:7)? If the rabbi resembles an angel of the Lord of Hosts, they should seek Torah from his mouth; and if not, they should not seek Torah from his mouth.

Do I need to quote to you from what I wrote above? You yourself quoted it.
And more seriously, those quotations say nothing about our issue. They are statements of appreciation for earlier generations, as is customary among us too. And self-sacrifice, though it is not necessarily connected to greatness in Torah, exists in every generation.

Maybe it looks like I’m repeating the claim, but it’s worth reading to the end.
Do we (your honor, me, and the rest of the readers) know how to study Torah by way of plain meaning, hint, homiletics, and secret, as the Tannaim and Amoraim could? Do we know how to derive the Torah through the thirteen hermeneutical principles?
Do we know how to study with such holiness that a bird flying overhead would be burned, or when the least of the disciples knew Scripture and Mishnah, Talmud, Jewish law and aggadic literature, the fine points of Torah and the fine points of the Scribes, a fortiori inferences and verbal analogies, astronomy and numerology, the speech of the ministering angels, the speech of demons, and the speech of palm trees, parables of launderers, parables of foxes, a great matter and a small matter—a great matter being the Account of the Chariot, a small matter being the discussions of Abaye and Rava. And likewise the ability to revive the dead…
I do not understand what the initial assumption behind the comparison is at all.
There are expressions of praise in the Talmud such as “lamp of Israel, right pillar, mighty hammer.” And true, today too there are expressions of praise, but who today would use the expression “ministering angels”? See Talmud, tractate Nedarim 20b: “The ministering angels told me.” And the conclusion of the Talmud is that this means sages who are like angels. Is the Talmud, God forbid, a Yated Ne’eman or HaModia newspaper?
Interesting—do you think the Vilna Gaon or the Rogatchover thought they were no less intelligent than the Tannaim and Amoraim?

Don’t let others deceive you.
We do not observe the commandments of the Torah.
We observe the laws of the Shulchan Arukh.

And which of the Torah’s commandments are we missing by observing the laws of the Shulchan Arukh?

I don’t understand what “missing” means.
When you keep the Shulchan Arukh, that means you are not keeping the Torah.

When you have a question about what to do and you turn to the Shulchan Arukh and not to the Torah, that means you do not see the Torah as the source of the command.
There is a concept of “he erred in an explicit Mishnah,” but I have never heard of “he erred in an explicit Torah text,” because one cannot err in that, since it does not function as a source at all.

And that is why the Jewish people are in exile.

If by some miracle the Shulchan Arukh says exactly what the Torah says, then it’s like looking in a mirror before parking instead of getting out and looking. You know the same thing with less effort. So I understood you to mean that the Shulchan Arukh cuts off part of the Torah’s commandments, and therefore someone who follows the laws of the Shulchan Arukh misses or violates part of the Torah’s commandments.
That’s why I asked, and as of 11:23 PM here in this city where I’m parked, which sits by the Ayalon and receives water through pipelines, I still haven’t gotten an answer.

First of all, if the laws of the State of Israel are identical to the laws of Britain, you are still keeping the laws of the State of Israel, and you are not keeping the laws of Britain.
Second, the Torah’s commandments and the laws of the Shulchan Arukh are very different. There is almost no connection between them.

Dissenter, isn’t it a shame for our time? There is really nothing new here. You keep repeating the same things again and again.
You are once again reading all the Talmudic descriptions and superlatives literally, and in doing so you enter the sect of fools according to Maimonides’ classification (regarding ways of reading aggadah). Contrary to your declarations, even today you can hear those superlatives: “the right lamp,” “mighty hammer,” “ministering angels,” “no secret was hidden from him,” “not a man was absent.” The Hazon Ish said about the Mishnah Berurah that all of its words are binding as if they came out of the Chamber of Hewn Stone. In your opinion, was Radin a neighborhood of Jerusalem (within the walls)? By the way, the Hazon Ish was of course a rebellious elder, since he himself disagreed quite a bit with the current head of the Sanhedrin.
By the way, in In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov you can read miracle stories beside which the Talmudic stories pale, performed by the ministering angels of the 18th–19th centuries. They apparently belong to the world of emanation, unlike the Talmudic ministering angels who merely revived the dead or miraculously shortened journeys. Small stuff for us. Not to mention the adventures of Rabbah bar bar Hana and his geese.

By the way, I assume Yonatan ben Uzziel never stopped speaking words of Torah (at least like all the departed of our generation). Poor all those birds that passed overhead. Isn’t it wasteful destruction to burn all of them instead of slaughtering them and giving them to the poor to eat? Or perhaps the birds were permitted to the poor under the rule that once its commandment has been fulfilled, it is permitted (like that scapegoat, which after being sent away, according to some opinions was eaten without slaughter because its commandment had been fulfilled).

A thousand pardons. It seems to me that I claimed wheat and was answered with barley.
Maimonides writes: “And if you are of the third group, then when you see something in their words that reason rejects, pause and contemplate it, and know that it is a riddle and a parable.”
I was not discussing the matter at all from the standpoint of studying aggadah, nor are there things here that reason rejects.
A. The claim was about the sages’ ability to study Torah in plain meaning, hint, homiletics, and secret, levels we do not attain. Do you know anyone who has the knowledge of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai mentioned above?
B. The claim was about expressions of praise, which indeed are riddle and parable. But it is clear that even according to the third group, they are not expressions of praise of Yated and HaModia.
C. The claim was also that even the great Torah figures of the later generations, whose genius we have some notion of, never for a moment thought they were equal to the Tannaim or the Amoraim.
D. And if there is riddle and parable in the Talmud’s words about Rabbi Akiva, does that mean it gives no testimony to the greatness of the holiness of his learning?
E. By the way, why only Tannaim and Amoraim? Are we equal to Moses and Aaron? To King David? To King Solomon? To Elijah the Prophet???
F. And I did not bring mere stories. The Hebrew Bible tells of Elijah and Elisha reviving the dead, and in tractate Ketubot, for example, it is told about Rabbi Hananiah ben Hakhinai that he revived his wife. What here is parable and riddle? Let’s leave Hasidic tales aside for the moment—we are talking about us.
G. And in one last moment of seriousness, I will conclude with the famous story. When Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin was asked whether the Vilna Gaon was like one of the Tannaim, he answered: Heaven forbid—perhaps like the Rashba.
So I would be glad to know who in our generation is really considered greater than the Tannaim, and in what way he is greater than them?

H. And let us conclude with the words of Maimonides in his introduction to the Mishnah: “…And this is what they said (Eruvin 53a): ‘The hearts of the earlier ones were like the entrance hall of the Temple, and those of the later ones were like the eye of a needle.’ And all the more so we, from whom wisdom has departed, as the Holy One, blessed be He, informed us: ‘And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden’ (Isaiah 29). Scripture included every one of us in four things: weakness of intellect, strength of desire, laziness in seeking wisdom, and eagerness for worldly gain—its four evil judgments. And how should we not distrust ourselves when we compare ourselves to them…”