When Moshe ascended to heaven [to receive the Torah] he found the Holy One sitting and fashioning coronets for the letters.[Moshe] said to Him: "Master of the world, who requires you [to do this]?"[God] replied: "There is a person who will come to be after many generations, called Akiva ben Yosef; he will one day expound heaps upon heaps of laws from each and every horn."[Moshe] said before God: "Master of the world, show him to me."[God] replied: "Turn around." He turned around and [found himself] behind the eighth row [in the Talmudic academy–behind the regular students arranged in order of excellence in the first seven rows]. Moses did not understand the discussion and was dazed. When [Akiva] came to a certain point, his students asked him "Whence do you know this?" Akiva replied, "[This is] a law [given] to Moses from Sinai." (Halacha l’Moshe miSinai).Then Moses was calmed.But Moshe turned back and stepped before the Holy One and said: "Master of the world, You have such a person, yet You give the Torah through me?"God replied: "Be still, that is how it entered my mind."Then Moshe said: "Master of the world, you have shown me his Torah; show me his reward."God said: "Turn around." He turned around and saw Akiva’s flesh being weighed in a butcher shop. 8Moshe exclaimed:"Master of the world, such Torah and such a reward?"God replied: "Be still, that is how it entered my mind." (TB Menachot 29b)
"In the first tablets there was no gift of Hidush at all but Torah was whatever Moshe heard with its basis in the Written Torah. Moshe did not know how to make his own Hidush except to think analogically but without creative pilpul. But in the second tablets the power of hidush was granted to innovate new halachot in every generation. That is the meaning of the Rabbinic phrase that ‘everything that a veteran student of Torah will in the future innovate is already given at Sinai.’ The power to innovate, not the content, is given. (HaEmek Davar Dt 4:14).“The reason God ordered Moshe to carve the second tablets was not because they were not worthy of a Divine act but to teach that the ever-renewing power of halacha given in the second tablets involves the active participation of the labor of human beings who with Divine aid, just as the second tablets were carved by Moshe and the writing was by God.” (HaEmek Davar Exodus 34:1)."The fact that Akiva could come up with an alternative understanding of Torah that even Moshe could not understand, let alone critique, shows that even the greatest scholars must be skeptical of their own interpretations. Therefore the Netziv maintains that, halachic research is like scientific research.“Scientific scholars can not claim in their hearts that they have understood all the secrets of nature…In fact, they cannot be sure that their own research is true since they have no clear test. A later individual or generation can through research contradict the previous scientific construction. So too researchers into the nature of Torah cannot claim to have considered all the changes and all that requires thought. There is no certainty that what they have explained is the true intention of the Torah. So all we can do is do our best with what we have.” (HaEmek Davar, Introduction, section 5).
“In Torah do not respect persons [that is a judge is forbidden to give preferential treatment to a someone being judged in the court even if they are rich or important. Justice must be blind to persons]. That applies even in respect to the authors of the Shulchan Aruch, when it comes to teaching or even deciding the law.”
Mishnah: How many lashes are administered? Forty less one [i.e, thirty-nine], as written: “. . . by number. Forty [stripes he may give him]" 13 (Deut. 25:2-3)–a number leading up to forty. Rabbi Yehudah says: He is given full forty lashes . . .Gemara: What is the reason [for this reading]? If it had been written "forty by number," then I would say: a count of forty. Now that it is written, "by number forty"–[this means] a count that leads up to forty.Said Rava: How foolish are all those people, who rise before a Torah scroll but fail to rise before a great man [i.e., a scholar]! For in the Torah scroll it is written "forty," and the rabbis came along and subtracted one.
“Much Torah have I learned and much Torah I taught. I have not taken [or lost?] anything from me more than a dog who licks from the sea. Much Torah I taught and yet my students have not taken [or lost?] from me more than a brush from an eye paint container.” (TB Sanhedrin 68a, Avot dRabbi Natan A 25)Rabbi Yehoshua says: It is impossible to hold a session of a Beit Midrash without an innovation (Hiddush) (Tosefta Sotah 7:9)Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai said: Eliezer, teach us one thing from the words of the wise.Eliezer demurred saying: Let me give you a parable. To what may I be compared? To a cistern (bor) that cannot produce more water than was put in it.Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai replied: Let me give you a parable. To what may you be compared?To a spring (be’er). Just as when it begins to flow it produces water from its own sources, so you can teach words of Torah more than were conveyed to Moshe at Sinai. (Avot d Rabbi Natan, Version B, 13).
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