[Avodah] Birur - Random Thoughts

[Micha Berger]

1- We recently discussed chazaqah disvara, and I defined it as a ruba
deleisa leqaman which is backed by an explnatory rule of thumb. A
rube deleisa leqaman would be something like the ratio of non-Jews
to Jews in a town. To be a chazaqah, it would not only have to be
a statistical majority, but one with a reason -- e.g. ein adam chotei
velo lo.

2- We also recently discussed qavu'ah and the Monty Hall Problem.
Thinking about it more, I'm still convinced that qavu'ah call to ignore
majority or probability isn't related to the MHP's counterintuitive
result about where the statistical likelihood resides.

3- We have often discussed the Ran, who holds that in the case of 2
chatichos shuman and one of cheilev, all three may be eaten. I
encountered a conter-example in the Y-mi, Demai 7:4, vilna 31b. One
coin of heqdesh in a purse of 10. If the person spends all 10 coins,
ma'al bevadai. It would seem the probabilities are recombined.

OTOH, we don't say that the 6th coin turns it into a rov. So I'm
not sure what to make of this.

4- Also, a little later, we have two cases of chazaqah demei'iqara. If
a person has some fruit in his home, he can rely bechazaqah that the
fruit are still around and use it to separate maaser.

However, if he says "that which will be left on the bottom of the bottle
is now terumah lemafrei'ah", we do not rely on a chazaqah that the bottle
will still be around by then.

The reason -- the latter case is lemafrei'ah. One is relying now on
the state remaning true not only now, but some time in the future when
the bottle is nearly empty.

A chazaqah demei'iqara doesn't carry into the future, only the present.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
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