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Halakhah and Phenomenology - The Very Small, Tastes and Birkhas haChamah

Posted: 27 Mar 2009 01:45 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/8TO2UXgbylM/halakhah-phenomenology-1.shtml


The Chinukh repeatedly explains various mitzvos by explaining haadam nifal  
lefi peulaso  a person is affected according to his action. Contemporary  
hashkafos differ over what halachic life is supposed to cause, whether the  
ideal is better described as wholeness, perfecting the image of G-d, or  
attachment to G-d. (See the posts in the Forks category.) But notice that  
both agree in describing the role of halakhah in terms of the change is  
causes on the self  whether perfecting him in a mussar sense, refining him  
in a Hirschian sense, bringing him experientially in a relationship with  
the A-lmighty, as Chassidim do, etc

One thing this implies is that halakhah need not be concerned with  
determining an objective reality. Rather, it has to deal with that which  
has impact on the person  the world as its experienced. Perhaps this is why  
the realia to which we apply halakhah is called metzius, literally what is  
found, and substantive elements of the metzius are said to have mamashus,  
they can be felt.

This actually means paying attention to three questions  what can be  
perceived first-hand, what was perceived and what is known by the  
individual in question.

Perceived and known: Well, if you see the ham and you know its ham, its  
obviously prohibited.

Not perceivable: This includes microscopic mites on ones food. Knowing  
theyre there doesnt change the halakhah; they simply dont have mamashus.  
Since a microscopic bug can’t enter our direct experience, the impact of  
eating it is not the same as the impact of eating a bug we could have seen.

My Rebbe, R. Dovid Lifshitzztl (Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchaq Elchanan, Fall  
1984 or perhaps Spring 1985), used a similar idea to explain a different  
problem. The Gemara explains that maggots found within a piece of meat are  
kosher.

The reason given is that they were born from the meat, an idea known in the  
history of science as spontaneous generation. Therefore, halachah treats  
the maggots identically to the meat.

Spontaneous generation has since been disproven. Maggots come from  
microscopic eggs, not abiogenetically from the meat. Now that we know that  
the underlying science is wrong, need we conclude that the halachic ruling  
is also wrong?

Rav Dovid taught that the halachic ruling is still applicable, because the  
microscopic eggs and maggot larvae are not visible, and therefore (like the  
insects in our first example), lack mamashus. The only cause for the  
current presence of maggots that we can see is the meat. Viewing the  
question in terms of human experience, the meat is the only source of

the maggots. Bugs or eggs that are too small to be seen, while we might  
cerebrally know they are there, can’t have the existential impact as those  
I could, and ought to have, noticed unaided.

Perceivable but not objectively real: e.g. Taam and Birkhas haChamah

There are responses that are normal human responses to an object or event,  
but have no objective trigger. Sometimes halakhah tries to weed out this  
attachment to falsehood by not recognizing it. Other times the Torah finds  
it more useful to channel that reaction.

In my humble opinion, an example of this second case is the concept of taam  
as used in the laws of kashrus. The usual approach is to define taam in the  
empirical sense, the taste of the item. And therefore it is usually  
explained in terms of microscopic particles of food trapped inside the  
metal. E.g. a meat pot is described as having particles of meat trapped  
inside it. And there are cases where taam can be determined by having a  
non-Jew taste the mixture.  (Or a kohein check a mixture of food that  
contains a tiny amount of terumah.) If an amount falls in (or is mixed in  
by a non-Jew who is not doing it to intentionally feed to someone who is  
subject to the laws of kashrus) that is less than one in 60 it can be  
nullified IF it cant be detected by taste. Such as a drop of milk falling  
into a pot of stew. In such a case the Shulchan Arukh (and Sepharadim) have  
a non-Jew check the taste, while the Rama prohibits (105:1-2).

However, there are cases where we assume a taam and even Sepharadim dont  
ask anyone to check for us. (See YD 92:5,7 and 105:5). E.g. If milk fell on  
the outside of the same pot, the pot is meaty. The very same less than 1/60  
drop is harder to nullify if it falls on the outside surface of the pot  
than in the stew itself?!

And why dont Ashkenazim have a non-Jew taste the product, if its all about  
sensory taste?

Also, this explanation involving microscopic particles of food absorbed  
into the pot defies the principle we invoked with respect to microscopic  
bugs  it cant be seen or tasted, but it does count?

I would therefore suggest the novel approach that taam here is meant in the  
psychological sense, the purpose or motivation of an idea. A meaty pot isnt  
meaty because there is any physical meat trapped in it, but because we cant  
disentangle our association to the pot from its historical use for meat.  
(And halakhah doesnt ask us to change that.)

If the pot was used for meat and I didnt know, then its a matter of neglect  
on my part. I should know that in the realm of human experience, not  
personally but of humanity as a whole, this pot is branded meaty. Yes,  
physical taste is one way of having a mental association, and therefore  
there are times Sepharadim believe its the only such association. But its  
not the only way the food can be experientially linked to prior foods.

Admittedly this case is speculative. So is the next one

Birkhas haChamah

There is no astronomical event specific to this berakhah. The equinox was  
on March 20th this year, and we will be making the berakhah beH on April  
8th. This is because our estimate for the year for the purposes of this  
berakhah is that of Mar Shemuel, where the year is 365-1/4 days exactly.  
(The same estimate as the Juilan year.) Over time, the rough level of that  
estimate adds up. Rav Adda proposed a more accurate estimate 365.2424 or  
so, and that is what we use in the 19 year cycle of months. For that  
matter, the 19 year cycle dates back to galus Bavel (where either they  
learned it from us, because the Babylonians did start using it in 499 BCE,  
or we learned it from them)  so we knew a better estimate when the halakhah  
of making birkhas haChamah mentioned in the beraisa.

The actual words of the beraisa are:

To which the gemara asks: ואימת הוי  and when is this?

אמר אביי כל כ״ח שנין  Abayei says: Every 27 years, והדר מחזור ונפלה תקופת  
ניסן בשבתאי באורתא דתלת נגהי ארבע  when the cycle renews and the season of  
Nissan [vernal equinox] falls in Saturn, on the evening of Tuesday going  
into Wednesday. The berakhah is then made in the next morning, when we next  
see the sun.

The reference to Saturn is an astrological concept. Each of the seven  
visible moving astronomical objects (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus,  
Mercury, Moon) rule over the world for an hour. During the course of a  
week, this pattern completes 24 such cycles. Saturn rules at sunset the  
evening before Wednesday, when the day begins halachically. Therefore, the  
sun returning to the equinox position when Saturn is ruling is defined as  
it being back in the place where it was created. Notice that this rule of  
Saturn has no corresponding astronomical event. For that matter, the Rambam  
rejects such astrology, and yet codifies birkhas hachamah.

And the Rambam, Ramban and Ran conclude the sun was created toward the end  
of Elul, not in Nissan. (Rashi and Tosafos conclude it was created in  
Nissan. Tosafos say it was conceived in Tishrei, and explain our liturgy  
accordingly.) And yet all three support the current practice of birkhas  
haChamah on a Wednesday in Nissan as an anniversary of the suns creation  
(or is we say like Rashi, placement in the sky) on the first Wednesday. Or,  
that it was the hypothetical beginning of the cycle the sun started in  
mid-way, when it was created a half a year later.

And was that Wednesday even measurable as time on a calendar? R  
Soloveitchik notes that in Qabbalah, the six days are really 6 of the  
sephiros. According to the Rambam they are logical causal steps in the  
development of creation, and not intervals  of time. (See the last block  
quote in this earlier post.) Rav Dessler understands the Ramban as saying  
that time during this period was entirely unlike the stream we experience.  
The Maharal also considers the element of time part of why the story of  
creation is considered by the mishnah to be a mystery. (See this post.) And  
yet none of them raise these issues as problems with respect to the  
observance of birkhas haChamah.

We live in a period of history in which science and technology are making  
great progress. The zeitgeist therefore gives them a very central role. It  
is natural for us to seek an explanatation for taam in terms of microscopic  
particles, even though Chazal couldnt have shared that chemical notion of  
how taste works, and we know from the words other uses that thats not how  
Hebrew reflects our relationship to taste. We also assume birkhas haChamah  
is speaking of the sun going back to a physical position.

The gemara concludes the dispute about when creation and numerous other  
events happens by saying that we count years from Tishrei, as thats about  
physical age, but tequfos from Nissan. Age is done in physical years.  
Tequfos arent the passing of time, its astrology in the sense of how we  
perceive the heavens rather than how they objectively are astronomically.  
For all we know they are exactly 365-1/4 days, a third kind of year in  
addition to the tropical one (one apparent orbit of the sun) or the sideral  
(one apparent orbit of the constellations, which was 20m24.5128s longer  
than the tropical year in 2000 CE). Tequfos are measured from the more  
spiritual new year, the month in which we became a people, Nissan. Note  
that both are experiences, the passage of time, astrology, not abstractions  
of science.

This is why the approach to birkhas haChamah is mythic. In the technical  
sense; choosing ideas for their import, not their historicity. Some may be  
historical, others not, but thats not whats relevent because the whole  
thing isnt a from scientific historian approach to the world.

It seems quite clear that the purpose of Birkhas haChamah was more  
pedagogic. There was a need to create a cause to bless G-d who makes the  
act of creation rarely enough for the blessing to be a major life event  
(unlike saying it on every thunderstorm, or when seeing the ocean, a large  
sea, a desert or being in an earthquake) but yet frequent enough to be  
remembered from one generation to the next. The thing we are thanking  
Hashem for is constant, He constantly creates anew and sustains us. The  
reason for the berakhah is thus not a physical event, but a cause for  
remembering that fact.

(Aside from the fact that many of the claims, e.g. much that is said about  
the sun being exactly back in the same place at birkhas hachamah, are just  
wrong. And rather than serving to advance faith, they give the scoffer  
straw-men with which they reinforce their skepticism. With respect to  
aggadic stories, the Rambam [introduction to his commentary to chapter  
Cheileq in Sanhedrin] identifies three categories of people, two wrong  
camps, and one right one. The erroneous approaches are: (1) Those who take  
all the fantastical claims of the stories as literal, find them absurd, and  
ridicule the Torah for it; and (2) Those who take them as literal, take  
them seriously, and therefore believe in an absurd distortion of the  
Torah.  Here too, by confusing a mythic perspective for a scientific one,  
people are being pushed into two very similar camps. The correct approach  
is (3) to realize that the Torah convey deeper truths via hint and riddle.  
As Rav Hirsch would say, to use metaphore to help us internalize abstract  
truths.)

As I opened, halakhah need not address what is, but rather how we can shape  
people. The academic strives for an objective study of the material. Trying  
in that way to obtain a freedom from negios (personal stake) and therefore  
greater accuracy. Talmud Torah is inherently different. The whole point is  
to acheive unity with the Torah being studied; to see it from the inside,  
as it sees itself, and to be shaped by that perception. The scientist and  
the talmud chakham approach their displines with very different attitudes.  
We should respect that same division and avoid making scientific claims  
about mitzvos. It is unnecessary to reexplain the kashrus of maggots, the  
notion of taam in a mixture or on a utensil, or the cause of birkhas  
hachamah as scientific theory advances, because none of them were based on  
the objective realities of science.

I hope to continue this discussion in a future post on understanding the  
rules of birur, resolving what to do in uncertain situations, by invoking  
the distinction between things that are unknown because they were never  
perceived vs. things that are unknown because the results of the perception  
got lost or confused. With that I will have discussed all the  
possibilities: perceived and known (trivial case); imperceptible (doesnt  
count whether or not its known); perveption without an actual object; and  
in the future post - perceptible but never happend to be perceived nor  
known; as well as perceivable and once perceived, but now unknown.

In a third post I would like to discuss a different issue  is belief in  
mitzvos having cosmological impact beyond their effect on the people doing  
them consistent with this notion that halakhah is about human perception?



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