[Avodah] Chatzi Shiur is not Assur Min HaTorah

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 09:52:21AM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi, its Kosher! wrote:
: But before we go there think about this, the Torah commands that we torment
: ourselves, VeIniSam, and we would assume this means no eating or drinking
: at all, after all the Torah is not prohibiting eating but demanding
: affliction. Yet the onus is upon Rebbi Yochanan to argue his case that a
: Chatzi Shiur IS Assur...

: so in fact everyone agrees that by Torah law we may eat on Yom Kippur a
: Chatzi Shiur

: We must conclude that affliction by not eating is more than the simple
: denial of food...

To rephrase in short by using Brisker lingo:

A kezayis is the shiur for akhilah, and therefore one can discuss whether
a chatzi shiur of something one may not eat is assur deOraisa.

But the kezayis is part of the very chalos sheim of inui. The question
doesn't begin if they didn't eat enough to be a pegam in the required
form of suffering.

A related quetion with which to test my reformulation:

What if someone eats a kezayis of a non-food? It's not akhilah, but is
it a lack of inui anyway?

: Chatzi Shiur IS Assur. And he does not point to the Passuk but needs to
: argue a Sevara [another outstanding proof for the superiority of Sevara
: over a Passuk - Lama Li Kera]

Or the parsimony principle -- it's not that logic is superior, but that
unnecessary pesuqim don't exist. So if we think the pasuq is stating
something we would know anyway, it is (also) saying something other
than what we thought.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha at aishdas.org        And the Torah, its light.
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