Generations of Adam

 From Isaiah Horowitz's

The Generations of Adam

(p. 270)

source was Rabbi Yom Tov

ben Abraham Asvili:

The rabbis of France were asked,

'How is it possible that both can be

words of the Living God, when one

forbids and the other permits?'  

They answered that when Moses 

ascended on high in order to receive

the Torah, he was shown forty-nine ways

to decide each case as a prohibition

and forty-nine ways to decide each case as

permitted.  So he asked the Holy One,

blessed be He, about this.  He said that

the power to decide is entrusted to the 

true sages of Israel in every generation.

This is correct, according to homiletic

interpretation, and there is also a

kabbalistic reason.