The Talmudic Mind
Current mood: 
contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy
In the world of halakhah, minority dissenting views are never nullified; these opinions are also part of the religio-legal landscape, and can become the normative law of the majority at another period in time or for a different and difficult individual situation.
The Talmud likewise powerfully and poignantly confirms the importance of dissenting views in order to challenge and help clarify the alternate opinion.
the Talmudic mind - is rooted in another Mishnah (B.T. Sanhedrin, Chapter 4, 37a), which sees the greatness of G-d in the differences among individuals and the pluralism of ideas. "Unlike an individual who mints coins from one model and every coin is exactly alike, the Holy One Blessed Be He has fashioned every human being in the likeness of Adam, and yet no human being is exactly like his fellow!..And just as human forms differ, so do human ideas differ." It is precisely in everyone's uniqueness that we see the greatness of the Creator.
And this was one of the great teachings of Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook: "only through a multiplicity of ideas and views can we eventually reach the one great truth which encompasses them all".
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