Prepare For Lag B'omer: The Controversy of the Rema's Rulings Raised By Rav Chaim Brother of Maharal

this Torah class is brought to you by Torah anytime.com okay good morning everyone sh we're very interesting topic this morning I have to admit we're going to be uh next chabas I'm going to be in cck for chabas m shabas is the art side of the Rama is the art side of the Rama Today's Breakfast is dedicated in honor of my dear friend Robert yadav they should have um theama was the pillar ofak for ashic jewry we have something called the is written by theama also wanted to write a codex of for the Ash and at the same time that the Rama was working on his work the M Maran bet YF the rabo wrote the sh so the Rama in his humility wrote footnotes on the uh sh and wherever the M says something and theama has a difference of opinion he says the word ha ha means footnote the Rama called his commentary the mappa the tablecloth because the was a set table and the Rama was covering the table theama was an amazing personality the Rama's opinion was that philosophy and cabala were almost the same the's opinion was philosophy and cabal was almost the same he had a two older cousins which were who were one were was the maharam um Kat Alan the and the other the mam padwa who was uh basically I believe his first cousin once removed as well as he was a uh a cousin of a brother-in-law of the and uh he was also a cousin once removed of the maral so the Rama was very uh related to many of the time so he's the first cousin of mar padwa he's the first cousin of the mar he's a brother-in-law of R Kats and he was a big proponent of studying philosophy following in the ways of the rambam in fact the opening comment of the anybody know what's the opening comment where does that come from where does but the talks about how the way a person acts when they're in the presence of a great king is very different than when in their their confines of the their own the privacy of their own home the ramam is quoting word for word the r in the the Rama was a very big proponent of the r in the the mar challenged the Rama the mar had issues with the Rama because the Rama in a letter to the Marshal quoted Aristotle and the Rama said that he never learned Aristotle independently whenever he quotes Aristotle it's always when the r already quoted him in the marim or elsewhere so what I want to bring to your attention today is a work that was written by the that many are not aware of the name of thiser is you ever hear theer so aside from the fact that the wrote on the tour he wrote on the he was he also wrote AER the was basically a codex of dietary laws dietary laws mean it was based on and modeled after theer sh Dura you ever hear shid Dura shid dur was written by RIT of dur and wrote a codex of in the model of the sh Dura and this was a very controversial work and it the the Rama had a friend in the Yesa which Yesa did the r learn in the Rama learned in the Yesa of ROM Shak you ever hear R Shalom shna R Shalom shna was one of the greatest alltime is who lived in uh Poland you have to understand there's an idea that as Spanish jewry was coming to an end in the end of the 15th century in 1492 the epicenter of world scholarship moved to Poland so in 149 to with the Spanish Inquisition it was the decline of Spanish jewy was the ascent of Polish jewry and the greatest god of the time his name was rakov palak he was the godar if you never heard of rakov palak you need to learn about him he was the acclaimed godar the reason perhaps you never heard about him is because he didn't write any and he bash in principle did not write he innovated a system of learning called P now PP is not what you know we're familiar with in Yesa there's something called pilp you know pilp is you know you have a to and you have a reaber and you have an answer of the of you we call that PPO that's not that's not what PPO was PPO was basically intellectual acrobatics what does it mean intellectual acrobatics so they would try to connect to garas let's say that were not connected there's no connection between them they would let's say take this is this is maybe um an OV exaggeration of what they would do but they would take and try to connect it to you know take out in other words it was merely to sharpen the minds of the it did not have any value it was a it was a manner of sharpening the minds of the tamim to produce Scholars not just of knowing information not what just what we call you know there's a concept you know what's or they call it you know the NB what's theb if anyone has a sh you could ask the NB why cuz she heard the nard being asked that sh so many so many times she knows the answer she doesn't understand why it's the answer but she knows the answer so there's an idea that when it comes to learning it's not enough just to know information you have to have a very sharp and profound understanding of the material so in order to sharpen the minds of the uh developed a system called uh p and he gave it over to his primary disciple Shak you ever hear shna Shak was the rash where the Rama learned and ultimately the Rama was excelled so greatly in the gave the his daughter Rama married I believe believe her name was Golda he married the daughter ofak by the way his first wife did not have and Golda the door of shamna passed away on the 11th day of Sian in um the year 1551 by the way the ra lived a very short life okay let's get let's focus on the ra so unlike his by the way the maral of Prague was very against P he did not agree with the system of learning called P the was the leading disciple of the Shiva P of shna rakna if I'm not mistaken is buried in Lublin and buried next to him near him is the ofin from just two different eras and two different worlds okay theama wrote a work called theama was a great innovator in the world ofak and there's a very now the was not happy with the B number one the r said B it's very nice you take the cons you know you take three views the rambam the Riff and the rash that was the the mod of Y he took the three pillars of the rambam the Riff and the rush and he took two out of three so the says two out of three two two of them were so it's very nice you put in the rush you know you paid homage to the rush but at the end of the day the rambam and the Riff are usually identical the rambam writes he only disagreed with the Riff on uh you know about a dozen a dozen times so you're this is always going to be the theack of the SP so the the ra one of his main critiques on the B is what about the B what about why don't you take into account the of we've mentioned many times who is the greatest of all the it depends who you ask depends if you're asazi Ori the say the says that the r was the greatest of all the but the as disagree the opinion of the ash is and after maintain the who is the nephew of R so the one critique of the Rama is why don't you take into account the opinion the number two the would say you allowed to do it you're not allowed to do it what about if you're really allowed to do it and the minog is not to do it or what if you're not allowed to do it and the Min is you doesn't matter what the Minh is the Rama was the the one who gave halik power to the concept of minog now minog is the most misunderstood term in Judaism people think oh my father does a I have to do a you are not bound by what your father did in in most cases minog is not what your father did minog is what was done in the city where your ancestors came from that's minog let's say your father says to Hill after ding let's say your father learns mishna does that bind you not not at all not in the slightest it's a nice thing to do it's a good thing to do you should do it because it's a good thing to do you're not bound by that something that a parent does because they want to do it or they want to be M does not bind you in any sense Minh is dependent on the way things were practiced in the community where your ancestors come from that's one of the basic misunderstanding of minog but when something was practiced in the in the community where your parents come from theama gave a lot of credibility to that in this was a concept that the Rama advocated really more than anybody else another thing theama uh came up with heid maruba heid maruba in other words really something is user the chicken is trfe according to most opinions but it's going to cause a big loss theama was the one who so to speak innovated you could be lenient now what and here's where there's like a slippery slope I'm of course I'm an the guy the guy down the block he's an so you're telling me that for for me the the chicken is TR and for that guy who it would be a big loss for him it would be kosher yeah so what so now what is subjective absolutely that was the opinion of the is subjective you do not find these ideas in the you will not find in the you will not find so these were all of the furthermore okay you want to see how times have changed you know we're so used to oh I don't know what the is I'll go ask aake think about what it means to go ask aake ask place means that I myself I'm so unlearned and so unknowledgeable that I can I don't even know heads or tails about this issue I'm going to call someone else and whatever he tells me I'm just going to follow now I presume that he must have learned the Su and knows every know everything that the that the have to say about that so basically I'm suspending my own mind and I'm basically relying on this gentleman who I hope he has a better clue than I do are you allowed to do that how do you know he's done his due diligence theama by writing a codex think about what a codex says M who's the Rama how do I know he came to the right conclusion maybe it is it is a job of every Jew to analyze each subject from its source in the gamar learn theim and then come out with now and each person knows their own particular situation because what their financial situation is what the need is it was the opinion of many that you cannot write a book a short you know like you cannot write yes no maybe this so when theama came out with his notes on theama had a very close friend from Thea the older brother of marala prag he wrote A Few uh he wrote a saer called I actually we quoted it a few weeks ago in our sh about being he wrote a saer called and he wrote a saer called and he established 13 principles to challenge the Rama and why you cannot rely on the r can you imagine here today we're now 500 years later no ashkanazi would move not right or not left from anything the Rama says and 500 years ago this was considered um controversial and a great God root a work that you cannot rely on the RMA so one thing we see is anytime anything good ever came in Judaism it was never accept did unanimously it was never accepted of course it was never accepted you know we look back we like to have like revisionist oh the the of course it's true you can't move if you move one iota from a word in the then you're like abdicating your connection to the Jewish people but historically all good things were challenged cries they interact didama ever act with the I was actually going to speak about this by um last night and it says it on the schedule but I wasn't in the mood of talking about that I said over other stuff but the Rama and the did interact in the Chim the issued a about Y and the ra Who is younger than than the B wrote a letter wrote a chuva with the utmost reverence and deference to the m and that but and that he's nothing compared to M but he argued on him he disagreed with him that was one that was one instance where they interacted another time where they interacted it seems that theama was a very greater and in order to write you need something called a tikon okay now not what Bala call you know B he practices a laning in a t a ton is the Manual of where a par should end what kavana you should have when you write sometimes it'ses sometimes it's if it's you have to to write it if it's you don't have to have that kabana by the way there was a controversy now where theim that have been using for the last five years there was a misprint basically the computer that types at it it seems like it uh there was a corruption and there was there was a controversy that brewed about a month ago I'm not sure where it's holding right now but whether the that were written in the last five years whether they're kosher or not whether all the written in the last five there's that's called a ton a ton is the manual of how to write a for the B had a ton the ra sent a letter to the to get a hold of the and the wrote a special and it's reported that it had 24 variances from other in Eastern Europe the SE existed in R until World War II and they would read it upon special occasions look in bar park today they have the SE of the B and uh the skull Reba I think he takes that a couple times a year on Kaneka maybe other occasions so in the in the Rama show they had the uh now I want to I want to share with you some of the critiques on the Rama now another critique of the so the Rama's critique on another critique theama had on the B is that the B but he did not take into account so the older brother Mar of prag said the r said to R Rama the same problem have with the that he didn't take into account I have on you because R you're only taking to account minog Poland but you're not taking into account minog ashas and there's a difference between the minog in Poland and the m in Germany now what very interesting and I don't know the answer to this is that you know look many people I cannot understand why when it comes to those who in they in and then those who they say po first of all I'm not Lithuanian I don't have Li Ian blood of me I don't have one oun of I don't have not one iota of Lithuanian blood so why am I saying I should say furthermore why in the world are people who they through and through their great-grandfather had a chandelier in Hungary and ate Gala they don't have an ounce of Polish blood why in the world are they daving so they'll say I'd rather be polish than a Lithuanian I don't know but what why is there no I don't understand why when it comes to the has nothing to do with is Poland is closer to Hungary like why are the tun by by I don't get that anyway um and for me so that that's why if if I'm ding in a minion it doesn't bother me so much to say the Poland cuz I you know I'm from Poland anyway do you have the sheet this is uh okay this is now here's very interesting this critique on the RAS was written three years um I'm G to tell you this sa is called it was published in the year 1575 3 years after the Rama passed away which is interesting it was it was not published it was composed 3 years after the Rama passed away but it was not published until over 130 years later in 1712 so apparently this a friend of the r he was too good of a friend to actually write in the Rama's lifetime so he wrote after he died and didn't publish it right away he was a by the and now let me explain to you what this is challenged him and many times on theim of but he also wrote an introduction basically bringing up 13 fundamental challenges to the and in general that was completely hidden that was nnas lamri and it was only published one time in the uh in tough b t b is and the Rabin sets forth all of his issues with the methodology of theama and what's amazing is somebody wrote a work to answer theama against the challenges of his name was Rian you ever hear of r what was his what was his saer called the do you have the new book we make a commercial now for the new book do you have this new book we gave it out yesterday okay in this book in a footnote I want to tell you on page 33 no that that deserves no I wrote I heard from that the sh comprises the largest body of material in that any one person ever composed is the largest body of the that any person is bigger than the gamarra it's bigger than the gamar anyway so he rode a contess against the think about it what was R's first name you know he pulled us out of the water so the wrote so the wrote a response called he writes I yank the out of the water from the challenges of okay so I want to read to you quickly some of the challenges of RAB the brother of the maral of Prague number one one principle is that when it comes to food food the laws of food are more than any other area of the and you cannot be quick to be lenient because what you you become what you eat you become what you eat number two now do not follow this this is very dangerous this is just between me and you no body else will hear it okay the opinion is you cannot rely on anyone else's you should not want to and you should not rely on a book like even the you got to learn the topic yourself again we're not on that level we unfortunately we have no choice but to be on on and but again back 500 years ago there was a Viewpoint that was considered a copout was considered a cop out speaking to number three this is an open rebuke against the who mattered many things number four he does not like any of these modern they're taking too much credit for themselves number five all the new books they just promote laziness they just make you lazy why I learn I'll just open up you know do this don't do that you know what took the gar a blot and a half to maybe it's this way maybe it's that way maybe you could say it like this and the gamar is mish if you would learn that gamar you would be straining your mind for weeks and weeks just tell me yes or no that's what the says says you know says yes the says no and and over here maybe so you know I saved uh I saved myself a few weeks it just promotes laziness next the authors today I'm saying we're not talking about 2024 we're talking about 15 1850 it's come out impossible that they uh are not free of error number seven he says not to rely only on the but on the other hand if you only learn the you're like an okay look at number nine here's uh one of the main Tinus of the uh of the the laws of tatas do not reach and they do not Encompass what was practiced in Germany and we're not M what was practiced in Germany for what was practiced in Poland ask how do they get how did they come to write because this is most Bas assuming by the way I want yeah did you know how long would it take you I want to just question to take you to read to learn the from SIM to sim right it's almost okay did you know that the he wrote a lengthy Exposition on the Torah and then he summarized in the sh that you should learn it once every 30 days so on the first day of the month you learn from s Al to sim what in yes it would take an entire year the expected every every average person to go from SIM to Sim in one day and that was considered just a quick review so you see how the times have changed that you learn the entire in 30 days it was like so you know what would that be like that would be less you know that would be like learning sh in like six months and the original it was there was a calendar you know okay look at um first of all comped many and even even if we accept what the says we can't accept what he says as a he doesn't like that the if there's a big loss has another a big need no until theama you go to the rabbi um could I do this it's either yes or no now theama creates the sliding scale very expensive big loss big need says the you can't pass that way that's a slippery slope today it's a big need tomorrow it's a small need the next day it's no need at all another if you have twas we don't slap on twas one on top of the other says ra where didd he get that from what effect did Rab's 13 arguments have on the acceptability of theama in none whatsoever none whatsoever so you know it goes to show that uh almost every good thing had major challenge es even the himself the also challenged the but uh the bottom line is it's it's K to to be familiar with this RAB this R the brother Mar of prag he was a good friend of the r he wrote this saer to challenge defended the r now I'll tell you something very interesting theama as we said was was very knowledgeable in many disciplines including philosophy and astronomy the Rama had a student R David Gans you ever hear R David Gans DAV Gans wrote a seav is a work of history that theama encouraged now here's RAV Gans was in Germany RAV Gans walked from Germany to Poland to learn from the Rama the rav Gans was an expert in astronomy and he had correspond with the great astronomers of the time called Johan kler and Tao Braha when the Ramo was on his deathbed he said I just heard from my student R DAV Gans in the name of I believe Tao Braha that a new star has been discovered and it's called Nova I think Nova just means a new star and Rama says that he hopes that that's a portend that Hashem always brings new sikim to the world before the old sikim pass away theama says I just got word that the great arisal passed away the ARA had just passed away theama was on his deathbed theama saw that jury was was decimated in 1492 and the Rama said just like when the Spanish Community had a decline Hashem brought up the community of Jews and Poland because hm always brings new sadik to the world before the Old Guard passes on I'm hoping says Rama the fact that Tao Braha found a new star that's symbolic of the fact that as I'm leaving the world and as the Aral just left the world Hashem is bringing new sikim to the world to uh to continue on the tradition of the Tyra so raama was a very interesting personality aside from the fact that he's the back bone of for for minhaz motivation for writing going back to the question motivation for right law where did that come why did it happen must have been something in the arm that needed it right yeah the people needed it in other words they needed unanimous law so what what R look you have the same debate with the art scroll when the art scr gamar came out Rak said that people are going to be learning uh now people are going to be learning in bed it's going to promote outsa people are going to be lying back in you know with their feet up sipping lemonade learning gamara it's going to promote laziness and Ros said Hali they should be learning the gamar and you know better than the other things they'd be doing so look every time we have uh things that make learning easier you always have you always have a debate in fact the chases writes that they had a new invention in the times of a revolving chair very big technology that they invented a revolving chair and this way you could like you have a safer here a safer here a safer there you could just you know flip like futuristic a revolving chair who knows what's next maybe a pen you know and the and the and the saer Y from the tresh and he says that you know it's promoting laziness it used to be if you needed a safer you would get up and you would go take it and that's that's also a which is a very big Li that means when you're learning something and you want to look something up and you say should I go to the Shelf going to the Shelf to look something up is a any every small so look I think uh the the general Viewpoint is even with all the crutches we have even with the art scroll and all the other crutches but the in our generation there's still room for if you apply yourself there's still room for with with all the revolving chairs and all the Arts girl garas okay you've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by Torah anytime.com