From: lerner@cs.columbia.edu (Michah Lerner)
Subject: Re: O-C-R Debate
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
	<FAIGIN.92Jul28143843@soldan.aero.org> <55463@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:27:14 GMT

In article <55463@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

>> Path: cs.columbia.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sample.eng.ohio-state.edu!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!pop.stat.purdue.edu!hrubin
>> From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
>> Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
>> Date: 29 Jul 92 20:37:40 GMT
>> References: <1992Jul28.043114.7747@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Jul28.210216.3814@wam.umd.edu> <FAIGIN.92Jul28143843@soldan.aero.org>
>> Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
>> Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
>> Lines: 34
>>
>> In article <FAIGIN.92Jul28143843@soldan.aero.org> faigin@aero.org (Daniel P. Faigin) writes:
>> >On Tue, 28 Jul 1992 21:02:16 GMT, aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) said:
>> >> I understand your position, however, I do not understand why the laws
>> >> derived from the Torah, and any religious law by the way, should follow any
>> >> logic.   
>>
>> >Not true. Whether the laws are logical is a different question, but if you are
>> >given the premise (unprovable) that what is written in the Torah is the word
>> >of G-d, then the laws in the Talmud should logically follow from the Torah.
>> >Similarily, the fences etc. erected since talmudic times should logically
>> >follow from the talmud.
>>
>> >If you don't hold with the premise, but hold with divine inspiration, then the
>> >same logical conclusions can be drawn, but they don't have the same force.
>>
>> Having read parts of the Talmud and Midrash, the "logic" used is not what
>> we would call logic, but a set of "rules", even explicitly stated, for
>> exegesis.  I have seen enough examples of weird uses of these rules, and
>> the rules are sufficiently broad that many developments can be made, and
>> these may be mutually contradictory.  It is not logic as any modern
>> scientist or philosopher would use the term.  

   The oral Torah was meant to be studied with a teacher (a Rav, if you will).
   Due to "historical" cicumstances it becmme necessary to commit it to
   writing.  An appreciation for these rules,  and the concommitant
   strengthening of your emunah,  would be the likely result of studying with 
   a well-trained person such as you would find in a Kollel or Yeshiva.

   As to the observation that the conclusions of some of these rules are not
   always in agreement with each other,  this simply shows that people cannot
   always agree.  It does not show that the rules are mutually contradictory.
   The consequences of this are quite far-reaching.   

   Incidentally,  doesn't logic suffer from the inability to handle
   statemetns such as "the contradiction of this statement is not
   provable" [Goedel].  This in fact is completely irrelevant to the Torah
   (Remember, I hold that 1+1=3 but Anochi Hashem Elokeho),  yet it is
   curious that you cannot present an "alternative" formal system which
   is eliminiates contradictions.  

>>
>> The traditional answer is that the sages with the appropriate background
>> cannot come up with an incorrect answer, but this is not satisfactory.
>> It violates the idea of a logical argument, which is that given the
>> premises, explicitly stated, and the rules, explicitly stated, any 
>> application or series of applications of the rules to the premises
>> yields a valid result.
>>

   What about logic, widsom, understanding?  What about the idea of
   "right" and "wrong" ?  Chava ate from the tree of KNOWLEDGE not from
   the tree of LOGIC.  Logic is one small part of knoweldge.




>> -- 
>> Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
>> Phone: (317)494-6054
>> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
>> {purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
--
/M
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish