Reply To: Continuation of Discussion on R' Slifkin and Weiss from Manchester Eiruv Thread

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#1002010
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Participant

Ben Levi:

I think you are very much confusing the ikkar and the tafel. The reason why R’ Slifkin wrote his books, is to deal with contradictions between Chazal’s scientific statements and scientific reality. His shitta is that there we don’t need to uphold Chazal’s scientific words. Now it happens to be that once you reach this conclusion, a question presents itself: What do we do when an incorrect scientific statement was made in the context of a halachic ruling. There are very few people who discuss this. R’ Dessler says that the halacha is not based on the science. If anything, this is the shitta that needs explaining, because if Chazal’s halachic rulings were all from a mesorah or something of the sort, why do we find that Chazal researched the science? Now the Dor Revii explicitly argues with R’ Dessler’s approach by saying that we can’t change any halacha after the chasimas hatalmud and he understands this to be the Rambam’s view. He compares this to the Sefer Hachinuch who says that to preserve the Torah it’s better to allow a few mistakes. Additionally, the Pachad Yitzchak suggested to change the halacha so he obviously wasn’t such a fan of R’ Dessler’s approach. So R’ Slifkin had to choose an approach and mistama he chose the one that resonated best with him. So how exactly is this beyond the pale?