Hundreds of students at the Old Seminary, an ultra-Orthodox school in Jerusalem, removed their shoes and walked barefoot after discovering their TOMS footwear contained Shaatnez, a forbidden mixture of wool and linen, BeHadrei Haredim and Mynet reported.
I thought bare feet are arayos which is yehareg v'al ya'avor so shouldn't they have kept the socks on as a lesser evil?
ReplyDeleteRambam says that a Navi is not believed if he paskens neged the oral tradition. Why then, can the oral tradition pasken neged the Torah?
DeleteCohanim wearing shaatnez comes to mind
The Oral law is part and parcel of the Torah, equal to the Written la and often overriding it. The Torah says "An eye for an eye" but we don't do that. Jews are forbidden to wear shaatnez but the tzitzis are shaatnez - wool tzitzis on a linen garment - and the kohanim get to wear shaatnez because those exceptions are built into the rule.
DeleteDoesn't say they removed socks just shoes
DeleteRambam says there's only about 19- 20 halacha lmoshe mi Sinai. Ithe rest are derived by using methods and discussion.
DeleteBut why do we have prophets if it's all up to the oral law?
Btw, rambam also says each generation can interpret halacha differently from the previous one.
The specific question of shaatnez is addressed by yechezkel, who says no wool shall come upon the cohanim. The meforshim argue that this is on Yom Kippur when they don't wear shaatnez but radak shows it's not only referring to Yom Kippur.
My understanding was that the oral law can only temporarily override the written law, although I may be mistaken.
Rambam is torn between saying that the oral law is d'oraita or a violation of the Torah. So he says on the one hand that we're obliged by the Torah to accept the words of the sages. But on the other hand, if someone says that a rabbinical law is from the Torah then he violates do not add. It's a bit difficult to get out of that knot, that pretzel contradictory.
DeleteRamban is more open, and says there's no actual Torah obligation to keep rabbinic law.