Avodah Mailing List

Volume 37: Number 35

Wed, 01 May 2019

• 1. Re: A Purim Thought From Rav S. schwab (Micha Berger)
• 2. Heseibah, Halachah and Science (Joseph Kaplan)
• 3. Re: Spare Cohen Spare Wife of Cohen (Micha Berger)
• 4. Re: Exactly when did we leave Mitzrayim? (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Heseibah, Halachah and Science (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Exactly when did we leave Mitzrayim? (Zev Sero)
• 7. Multivalent truth (Rich, Joel)
• 8. Re: Heseibah, Halachah and Science (Akiva Miller)
• 9. Re: Heseibah, Halachah and Science (Rich, Joel)

On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 09:59:42PM -0400, Michael Poppers via Avodah wrote:
: In Avodah V37n21, RDrYL quoted from the Hakhel bulletin:
:> remember that 50 Amos high tree-- look up to its top <

: What happened to not being able to Halachically 'see' above 20 *amos*?

It's more like people don't notice what goes on that high. You can't count
on someone seeing a menorah > 20 amos above the ground, or when you sit in
your sukkah, pay attention to similarly high sekhakh.

But here it's kind of different. Someone is executed; people are told to go
look. The height is to maximize how many people see the execution's results
first hand. Not for them to notice the body and thereby learn about the
execution.

Efshar?

:-)||ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 4th day
mi...@aishdas.org        in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Netzach sheb'Chesed: When is Chesed an
Fax: (270) 514-1507                           imposition on others?

RAM gives two thoughtful possible analyses of how Chazal came to the
conclusion that stepping on fingernails led to miscarriages. Let me add a
third (perhaps not as thoughtful).

That conclusion was a common thought of the people of Chazal?s time. Like,
in generations past, when people would say if a pregnant woman was carrying
high it was a boy and if low it was a girl (or vice versa; o forget).  No
one that i know of ever scientifically tested the ?theory? and now, of
course, there are scientific ways to determine sex which have been tested
and work. ISTM that not everything that Chazal said has to be, or should
be, given the same weight. 

Joseph

Joseph

Sent from my iPhone

On Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 04:40:59PM +1100, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: at the start of Mishnah Yuma
: why is there a discussion re the spare Cohen's wife which concludes
: Im Kein Ein Ledavar Sof
: 
: but no such conclusion with the Cohen himself and his spare Cohen

Nothing made the replacement KG officially the replacement. It was just
smeone who prepared in case the understudy was needed. See Hilkhos
Avodas Yom haKippurim 1:3, who pasqens accordingly (following R' Pappa
on Yumo 12a-b).

Very unlike what a marriage that might prove pointless would do to a
person's life.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 11:15:37pm EDT, R Akiva Miller wrote:
: (In this post, I presume that "Eretz Mitzrayim" and "Mitzrayim" are
: synonymous. If anyone disagrees, please speak up.)

Eretz Goshen is both in and not in Mitzrayim. I am not sure whether the
issue is the word "eretz", but I think some ambiguity as to what the
term refers to exists somewhere.

I think looking for a firm border is anachronistic anyway. Control kind
of faded away as you reach the no man's land of the desert. Think the
European city-state -- there was more or less sovereignty over areas
further from the city, depending on roads, distance, etc...

And before any real cartography? I don't think the notion of "drawing
lines", hard demarcations, would have crossed anyone's mind.

I would faster guess that Yetzias Mitzrayim refers to leaving Egyptian
controlled territory, to the point where we escaped their control.
Which would actually be a moving target -- before the army was dispatched
and after Par'oh exerted his authority up to the Red Sea.



And on Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 01:27:04pm EDT, RAM's follow-up included:
: For now, I plan to say that Maggid is *not* only about Yetzias Mitzrayim.
: Just as proper understanding of a story includes its prologue (Arami Oved
: Avi, for example)...

Bitechilah ovedei AZ starts at Terach, even!

Not even background to how and why we were in Mitzrayim to begin with.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 10th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  judgment bring balance and harmony?

[Replies to RSSimon and RAMiller's emails included, discussing very
different aspects of the topic.]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 08:41:13AM -0400, Sholom Simon via Avodah wrote:
: His teshuva seems to fit a meta-halachic theory I've heard from a teacher
: that many times Chazal knew the mesorah/law/torah she'bal'peh, but didn't
: necessarily know the reason and they (to put it bluntly) guessed at the
: reason.  I've heard the kashrus status of bee honey described in that way
: -- i.e., nobody disputed that bee honey was kosher, but they were incorrect
: when they ascribed a scientific reason for it.

The kashrus of bee honey is also derived from "*MI*kol sheretz ha'of"
and "eretz zavas chalav udevash" (Bekhoros 7b). "Devash" in that 2nd
pasuq probably means date nectar, as it does in the similar berakhah
about EY's 7 minim. But if any kind of devash weren't kosher, the word
wouldn't be used in a berakhah without a disambiguating qualifier. (Or,
as the gemara says, unless the non-kosher devash was always named with
a modifier, like wasp honey.)

: How might that apply to other situations?  (Killing lice on shabbos?).  It
: is a general meta-halachic rule?  If not, when is it applied and when not?
: Or is this a post-hoc justification?  I have no idea...

We discussed this a few times.

The Gra and R Kook both hold that for every reason given for a halakhah
there are usually many others not spelled out for us. So, if the reason
for a heter is found to be scientifically wrong, we would need to be
machmir (killing lice). But, if a reason for a chumerah were disproven,
we have to assume there are other reasons still around sufficient to
justify sticking with the chumera. So, they only change the halakhah to
add chumeros.

I heard RDLifshitz give shiur on maggots found in meat. Leshitaso, the
maggots would be kosher. We have maggots in the meat because (1) there
were microscopic maggot eggs laid in the meat, and (2) once the maggot
hatched, it ate meat until it grew to visible size. But #1 doesn't count,
not being microscopic. It's the meat that made the problem halachic --
allowing the maggot to grow from micro- to visible size. And thus,
it still is born from the meat" in a halachic sense".

And I would think parallel reason would permit killing lice on
Shabbos. Assuming a bree of lice with invisibly small eggs.

I got the impression that RDL would assume that this kind of reasoning
could be found in every example.

From which I generalized way out there to the principle that halakhah
doesn't deal with scientific reality, but reality as experienced. And
there are a lot fewer exceptions to Greek science that way.


On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 08:29:58AM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: Similarly, I am not aware of any rigorous double-blind study on whether
: pregnant women miscarry after stepping on discarded fingernails.
...
: R' Josh Backon did post some research here (for example, at
: http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol08/v08n035.shtml#11 and
: http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol16/v16n151.shtml#09) to show that it is
: dangerous to eat fish with meat. But even there, I am not aware that there
: were any actual tests done to *prove* his conclusions.
: 
: My personal interest has been on the other side of this coin: Why don't
: these "dangers" count a forbidden superstitions?

First find the line between supersition and dicarded scientific theory.

To the Ibn Ezra, astrology was part of natural philosphy. Basically,
science. To the Rambam -- superstition. In Aristo's physics and
metaphysics, the IE's position is quite reasonable.

...
: This leads me to two possible conclusions: (1) Perhaps Chazal never saw a
: case where a woman did step on fingernails, and successfully delivered her
: baby. If every single test case resulted in miscarriage, then their
: conclusions are reasonable. But how can they have been so carefully
: observant of every single case? (2) The other possibility is that the
: belief in this danger is not the result of anything they observed, but was
: Received Revelation. This seems much more likely to me, because it is a
: simple entryway into halacha. Without a Revelation from Shamayim, wouldn't
: a belief in these dangers be a forbidden superstition?

Maybe R/Dr JB is right and mixing fish and meat does pose a danger. The
effect would have to be minimal, since we don't find anyone else noticing
it and turning it into a medical recommendation. Not much different than
there being no medical effect at all. Why would G-d be telling us such
things and not about much riskier foods?

And the Rambam omitted any ban on meat-and-milk from his book. It seemed
to R' Avraham ben haRambam that this was because he considered Chazal's
ban to be based on discredited science.


Why did the amoraim of Bavel spend so much time talking about sheidim,
while the Y-mi does not? Was it that they fought into Babylonian
superstition ch"v? Or was it that in the Bavli worldview, demonology
was accepted science. OR was it just coincidence that only the amoraim
living in a culture that paid much much attention to demons are the ones
concerned about sheidim?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 10th day, which is
mi...@aishdas.org        1 week and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Tifferes sheb'Gevurah: When does strict
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  judgment bring balance and harmony?

On 30/4/19 1:26 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> I think looking for a firm border is anachronistic anyway. Control kind
> of faded away as you reach the no man's land of the desert. Think the
> European city-state -- there was more or less sovereignty over areas
> further from the city, depending on roads, distance, etc...
> 
> And before any real cartography? I don't think the notion of "drawing
> lines", hard demarcations, would have crossed anyone's mind.

And yet the Torah demarcates the borders of Eretz Yisrael, and the 
Tanach gives the intertribal borders.  It also says that Edom had 
borders which we could not cross, and that the Arnon was the border 
between Emor and Moav, etc.

-- 
Zev Sero            A prosperous and healthy 5779 to all
z...@sero.name       Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

________________________________

From R B?Bednarsh on halachic pluralism:
Accordingly, when commentaries argue regarding the correct halakhic ruling,
this represents not a lack of clear knowledge but a deeper knowledge of the
multivalent truth about this particular halakhic matter. The complex
rulings of the later poskim are the proper applications of that
multifaceted truth. When the negative aspects of a certain matter clearly
outweigh the positive aspects, we rule for practical purposes that it is
forbidden. Likewise, when the positive aspects vastly outnumber the
negative aspects, we rule that it is permitted. But at times, when both
facets are significant, we will emerge with a sophisticated ruling that
reflects the complexity of the issue, and we will be lenient in some
circumstances and stringent in other circumstances, depending on the exact
balance and relative strength of the conflicting aspects. The complex
rulings that emerge from the halakhic process are thus reflections of
authentic truth, which is necessarily complex and dependent on the cir
 cumstances.

Me-How do you reconcile this with the classic brisker chakira which seems to look at halachic truth as Boolean?

Kt

Joel Rich
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.
I asked:
> Why don't these "dangers" count as forbidden superstitions?

R' Micha Berger pointed out:
> First find the line between superstition and discarded scientific theory.

I'm wondering about the line between *discarded* scientific theory and
*current* scientific theory. I don't think the line exists; the only
difference between the two is which era WE happen to be living in.

If so, then the real question is "merely" to find the line between
superstition and science.

No, that's not "the" real question. It's just one of several questions, and
I wonder whether the other questions are truly different, or they are just
different expressions of the same idea. These other questions include:

Where's the line between magic (according to those poskim who accept that
it exists) and technology?
Where's the line between miracles that one is allowed to perform (if he has
the ability) and those that he is not?

I suspect that the answer to all of these is flexible with the time and
culture of whoever is asking. There is no fixed standard, but whatever the
consensus holds to be science, superstition, magic, or miracle, so does
halacha. Perhaps we can draw a precedent from dangerous situations: Which
are the dangers that halacha requires us to avoid? The ones that people
generally consider to be dangerous. So too in these other areas.

Akiva Miller
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Where's the line between magic (according to those poskim who accept that it exists) and technology?


Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

KT
Joel Rich
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