4

Why does the Gemara decide to pasken in a select few cases and otherwise leaves the machlokes open ended for us to decide?

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    The way I understand it, what happened was, that for "a select few cases", Chakhamim were able to reach (by the sealing of the Talmud) a [majority] decision, and those they weren't able to decide by then, got left "open ended for us to decide".
    – Tamir Evan
    May 6, 2020 at 4:34
  • 2
    Many of these decisions are later interpolations.
    – Double AA ♦
    May 6, 2020 at 12:43
  • @doubleaa from the Geonim
    – sam
    May 6, 2020 at 15:28
  • @DoubleAA I was going to write an answer developing that idea, but could not find a source for it other than common sense and my own memory, neither of which work for answers on this site. Any idea of people who make that argument, whether traditonal or academic?
    – chessprogrammer
    May 7, 2020 at 1:17
  • 1
    The gemara gives a conclusion far more often than it seems. There is an art to deriving from the keywords when the gemara is asking a question that it knows must have an answer because we hold like the thing we're asking about, and when the qushya is meant as a disproof. Rishonim have rules for these things; unfortunately they don't agree on all the rules. I presume R Ashi and Ravina didn't expect that to happen.
    – Micha Berger
    May 7, 2020 at 18:50

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .