OhTeeDee,
The fact that there is no mechanism in place to change things (that seemingly no longer apply/make sense
To you?
) doesn’t seem like a problem with the system?
Observing Yom Tov over two days in the diaspora makes sense to me. So why should I believe that it should be changed?
for 2500 years there were tannaim/amoraim/rishonim tweaking halacha, most of which applies halacha li’mayseh today. Weren’t they “reforming” (i know…a very bad word 🙂 the direction of the torah.
No, not reforming. When the U.S. Supreme Court makes a ruling, in an ideal sense we do not say that they are reforming the U.S. Constitution (e.g., “hey, lets throw this clause out”). Rather, they are applying the Constitution to their case at hand. This is similar to what the sages do – they apply Torah principles to a situation in order to figure out what to do. Different sages may make different applications, but it is not reformation.
I am not saying rejecting torah she’bal peh, all i’m saying is that if halacha is a living, breathing idea why did it stop changing (except to make life HARDER) 150 years ago?
This is a false argument. Blechs on electric stovetops, hearing aids, timers, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc. did not exist 150 years ago, yet our living halacha has dealt with all of these things (mostly to make life EASIER, by the way). If halacha stopped changing 150 years ago, then we’d still be living as people did 150 years ago, like the Amish. But we don’t, because halacha does deal with changes in the world. It seems possible that your perception of a lack of halachic adaptation is not due to an actual lack of adaptation, but to your dislike of how it has adapted.