Rabbi Meir Lichtenstein Speaks

Wednesday morning, Rabbi Meir Lichtenstein, the rosh beit midrash at Yeshivat HaKibbutz HaDati Ein-Tzurim, came to speak to the first-year and mechina students. His שיעור (lecture) was upon a statement of רבא (Rava - an early fourth century Jewish sage, who lived in Mechoza, Babylonia) recorded in קידושין ו (Kiddushin 6b) about the permissibility of gifts with a condition of return with another of his statements on the same topic.
One of his points was that even though his statement is not formulated in conceptual terminology, but that it is clear that he has a conceptual basis. This, of course, brings up whether statements are those of case law or those of conceptual law. He pointed out that conceptual terminology is not (or seldom(?)) found among the Tannaim, somewhat among the Amoraim, and a lot among the Stammaim. It was also interesting to look at how we may see the stam as not just being wrong, but that he may have had a different conceptual approach to the topic.