[Avodah] kosher switch

[Eli Turkel]

<<On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 12:01:23PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
:> At some point, the probability gets to be a small enough miut that it's
:> ignorable.

: Why?  If at any given point, you still have only a 50% chance of getting a
: head?

If brushing one's hair is pesiq reishei for pulling hairs out, it's
not because we consider the odds of uprooting each hair as a separate
risk.   AIUI, the odds add up. >>

Changing the topic there have been major debates in EY about ribis and heter
iska for banks.
Many years ago the Mizrachi bank was sued in court for a loan that defaulted
that they signed a heter iska and so should participate in the loss.

As a result various rabbis worked on a new version of a heter iska. The main
problem is that the rational of the heter iska is that the bank takes some
risk. However, if there is any reasonable risk then the bank won't make a
loan. The solution was to write the heter iska so that the possible risk is
extremely small so as to be negligible while not being zero.

If ome takes Chana's argument to the limit -  a one in a billion chance is
ignored in halacha just as we ignore insects we can't see. As pointed out in
the past even chamtez on Pesach which is not batel even if there exists a
mash-shehu is batul if the amount is so small as to be insignificant.
Otherwise every mixture in the world has some infinitesimal amount of
chametz from the air.
Hence, I would assume that if a device has a one in a billion chance of not
working that doesnt make it into grama. So the only question is what is the
cutoff. Standard psak in many areas is that a small miut of under 5% doesnt
count

-- 
Eli Turkel
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