As a disclaimer: what I am going to write is meant as a way of expressing some of my opinions. None of this should be seen as a personal attack. I speak with the utmost respect for all those mentioned.
It seems that anything I am going to say about the argument between R. Yitzchak Blau and R. Dr. Alan Brill in the most recent Edah journal will be seen simply as another student defending his teacher (the original article by Dr. Brill can be found here). Therefore, from the outset, let me say that I agree with Dr. Brill's assessment, though as R. Blau and others have found, some of his writing was a bit difficult to understand, which I take to be both an issue of space and the difficulty of the subject. Of course, I personally attribute the difficulty I had to the fact that I am not well read in certain subjects with which Dr. Brill dealt.
In terms of my personal views of the issue, I think that the idea of labelling something Torah U'Whatever is somewhat a semantic game. To try and create distinctions between things that are Torah and things not is too difficult. The reality is that at some level all subjects do fall under the "Torah" category. For example, poetry as a form of expression might be Torah under certain contexts, like piyyut. Even if one poetic style might be better than another, to reject the lesser, especially when part of our heritage is stifling.
In terms of the articles, you get the sense from reading Rabbi Blau's response that he was unable to completely follow Dr. Brill's thinking. The response ends up feeling like a defense of the current methodologies as espoused by R. Lichtenstein. While I am not one to get involved in something a bit over my head, I was deeply disturbed by one question that Rabbi Blau asked at the end of his response, namely, why is Dr. Brill using contemporary theories when they will most likely be a thing of the past in 50 years? The question sounds as though we should never challenge our thinking with the in thought because it might go away.
Dr. Brill, when answering the charge that he too will become irrelevant in 50 years, says that he acknowledges and to a certain extent assumes that. Nevertheless, the issue isn't about writing something eternally relevant. The issue is posing the current questions and working with them to formulate new ways of thinking. Relevance never seems to play a role in the writing of others before this debate. If those of us who dabble in the academy and in the Beit Midrash are afraid of the challenges they pose each other, then we can never grow as thinking human beings and then those who are the leaders of the Jewish community fail. Furthermore, if we assume irrelevance is to play a role, who is to say one won't turn around and argue that Rambam is irrelevant or Maharal is irrelevant.
It seems that anything I am going to say about the argument between R. Yitzchak Blau and R. Dr. Alan Brill in the most recent Edah journal will be seen simply as another student defending his teacher (the original article by Dr. Brill can be found here). Therefore, from the outset, let me say that I agree with Dr. Brill's assessment, though as R. Blau and others have found, some of his writing was a bit difficult to understand, which I take to be both an issue of space and the difficulty of the subject. Of course, I personally attribute the difficulty I had to the fact that I am not well read in certain subjects with which Dr. Brill dealt.
In terms of my personal views of the issue, I think that the idea of labelling something Torah U'Whatever is somewhat a semantic game. To try and create distinctions between things that are Torah and things not is too difficult. The reality is that at some level all subjects do fall under the "Torah" category. For example, poetry as a form of expression might be Torah under certain contexts, like piyyut. Even if one poetic style might be better than another, to reject the lesser, especially when part of our heritage is stifling.
In terms of the articles, you get the sense from reading Rabbi Blau's response that he was unable to completely follow Dr. Brill's thinking. The response ends up feeling like a defense of the current methodologies as espoused by R. Lichtenstein. While I am not one to get involved in something a bit over my head, I was deeply disturbed by one question that Rabbi Blau asked at the end of his response, namely, why is Dr. Brill using contemporary theories when they will most likely be a thing of the past in 50 years? The question sounds as though we should never challenge our thinking with the in thought because it might go away.
Dr. Brill, when answering the charge that he too will become irrelevant in 50 years, says that he acknowledges and to a certain extent assumes that. Nevertheless, the issue isn't about writing something eternally relevant. The issue is posing the current questions and working with them to formulate new ways of thinking. Relevance never seems to play a role in the writing of others before this debate. If those of us who dabble in the academy and in the Beit Midrash are afraid of the challenges they pose each other, then we can never grow as thinking human beings and then those who are the leaders of the Jewish community fail. Furthermore, if we assume irrelevance is to play a role, who is to say one won't turn around and argue that Rambam is irrelevant or Maharal is irrelevant.
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