Halacha, Hashkafa and Life

OK, so this is one of those posts I started a long time back and haven't found it in myself to "tie up" until now. The trigger is now out of context, but the questions it's raised are very much at the heart of what I hope to address next year (which starts in a week -- eek!)

OrthoMom's post during the Nine Days on halachic loopholes really struck a chord with me. I often feel very contrary and unfulfilled about the laws of the nine days, because many of the elements of daily life that are restricted so as to encourage mourning and represent sadness just don't do it for me. I prefer dairy to meat and I consider laundry a chore, so why should keeping these laws get me in the right mood for Tisha B'Av? In fact, I often feel compelled to refrain from certain other activities that strike me as comparable in intention to the prohibited ones, because that would at least provide enough annoyance to be a reminder of the spirit I'm supposed to maintain. If there are three weeks when I'm not allowed to cut my hair, which I only do a couple of times a year at most anyway when I finally get fed up with the number of split ends I have, why should I be permitted to polish my nails during that time?

But it is the comments to the post which raise the most salient points, because the actual answer to my semi-rhetorical question is that Chazal¹, the makers of halacha², chose the "universal" symbols of joy and sorrow, and subscribing to those standards on a national level is inherently significant for the formation and maintenance of unity, tradition, communal identification. Fine. So I'll buy the necessity of imposing personally meaningless limitations in order to create a collectively meaningful mood. But how about when the defining line is not me vs. us but rather then vs. now? If women had been accustomed to painting their nails in Chazal's time (or were they?) would it have been forbidden during the three weeks? That's the justification for some poskim³ who don't consider a woman's voice to be erva⁴ these days, because it's just too common to hear women singing for it to arouse much of anything. That rationale is far from universally accepted, though.

I think what's eating me here -- of course -- is the fine, almost invisible line between the nature of the changes that are made by mainstream Orthodox (if there is there such a thing) halachic decision-makers, and those that are determined to be unacceptable lest we stray too far from halacha. My need is to take a closer look at what halacha is, exactly, and who/what created each manifestation of it. Because although I do value the body of rabbinic thought, discussion and lawmaking that our tradition treats as part and parcel of Torah, and I do not think that any of it can be disregarded out of hand (i.e. I am not a Karaite), it seems to me there should be a big difference in the treatment, by the gedolei hador⁵, of a law that is derived directly from the Five Books, and one that is either extrapolated within an inch of its life (a geder⁶ on a geder on a geder on a geder on a geder, if you will), and one that has its origin solely in the minds of Chazal because the instigation for the law was an event that occurred later in our history.


In the small hope that there may be someone reading this blog who I don't already know of, and in consideration of the possibility that this unknown figment of my imagination might not be familiar with the terms I use, I'm trying to make this post unidentified-reader-friendly. At some point I hope to go back through previous posts and provide more explanation/translation, or create a glossary altogether, but until then...
1 - Acronym for CHAchameinu Zichronam Liv'racha, literally "Our wise ones, may their memories be a blessing"
2 - Jewish law
3 - Halachic decision-makers
4 - Without going into a much-too-complicated discussion, a part of the (generally female) body which may not be seen, or in this case, voice which may not be heard (by men)
5 - The most learned minds of each generation
6 - A "fence", an enactment that is meant to prevent the practitioner from even coming near the possibility of transgressing a certain law