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<a style="font-family:Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:18px;" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/iIUwMI4TBg8/halakhah-and-phenomenology-3.shtml">Halakhah and Phenomenology - The Unperceived</a>
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<span>Posted:</span> 21 Apr 2009 04:33 PM PDT</p>
<div style="margin:0;font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;line-height:140%;font-size:12px;color:#000000;"><p>Back on April 6th, I posted my previous entry to this series. The notion I’m exploring here is that:</p>
<p>(1) <em>Halakhah </em>is about changing the one who performs it (as the Chinukh puts it “האדם נפעל לפי פעולתו”) and therefore</p>
<p>(2) One can understand various aspects of <em>halakhah </em>by thinking of it in terms of the world as it is experienced or should be experienced, rather than looking at things in more scientific terms.</p>
<p>In <a title="Aspaqlaria: Halakhah and Phenomenology - The Very Small, Tastes and Birkhas haChamah" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/03/halakhah-phenomenology-1.shtml">part 1</a>, I explored the basic premise and two categories:</p>
<ul>
<li>Cases where the scientific reality is outside the realm of possible experience: e.g. microscopic bugs and maggot eggs.</li>
<li>Cases where a person’s associations are normal human nature, not to be weeded out, but do not reflect realities. The examples here were the laws of <em>milchig</em>, <em>fleishig </em>or treif <em>utensils</em>, and the “return of the cycle of the sun” of <em>birkhas hachamah</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p>In <a title="Asparlaria: Halakhah and Phenomenology - The Actually Perceived" href="http://http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/04/halakhah-phenomenology-2.shtml">part 2</a>, I started looking at the rules of <em>birur </em>– how to determine what to do in cases of doubt. This topic will continue here (part 3) and in the next post in the series (as I now plan things). The introduction, though should really be read in full. The key point that must be kept in mind for all three posts about <em>birur</em> is:</p>
<blockquote><p>Rav Aqiva Eiger (<em>teshuvah</em> #136) divides these laws into two types:</p>
<ul>
<li>ways of applying the <em>halakhah </em>to an uncertain <strong>situation </strong>and</li>
<li>resolving what to do when the <em><strong>halakhah </strong></em>is uncertain</li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, the doubt could be about the reality, and now we need a <em>halakhah</em>, or the <em>halakhah </em>could have once been set, but now we don’t know what it is.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>[T]wo principles. The first is “<em>kol qavu’ah kemechtzah al mechtzah dami</em>” (anything that’s established is like half against half). It is specitically this rule that we There is no playing odds, a doubt is a doubt whether it’s 50:50 or 90:10. For Torahitic laws we would have to assume the stricter possibility, and for Rabbinic ones, the more lenient side.</p>
<p>The other rule is “<em>kol deparish meirubah parish</em>” (anything that leaves the group [can be assumed to have] left the majority). Here we see that majority is a deciding factor. The first case is called “<em>qavu’ah</em>” (established), the second “<em>parish</em>” (separated). How does “<em>qadu’ah</em>” differ from “<em>parish</em>“? When is majority ignored, and when is it a determining factor?</p>
<p>Tosafos (Zivachim 72b, “<em>Ela amar Rava</em>”) write “<em>qavuah </em>only applies to a thing that is known”…</p></blockquote>
<p>Combining the two: when no one ever knew the situation, we can rely on majority to determine reality. But in cases where there were witnesses or the state was once known and now forgotten, the <em>halakhah </em>was once established (<em>qavu’ah</em>) and we cannot use majority to determine doubt in <em>halakhah</em>.</p>
<p>Part 2 discussed cases of where the reality was once witnesses: actual <em>qavu’ah</em>, testimony (which side has more witnesses doesn’t matter, once both has a set of at least two), <em>migo </em>and <em>hapeh she’asar</em>. This post will address how <em>halakhah </em>uses the concept of majority in the context of the perceivable that wasn’t actually perceived.</p>
<h2><em>Rov</em></h2>
<p>Suppose there are three pieces of meat, two of which came from a kosher source, and one from a non-kosher source, but we don’t know which is which. This is a case of <em>parish</em>, so we can use <em>rov</em> — assume that any given piece came from the majority (<em>rov</em>)– it’s kosher.</p>
<p>Here’s the strange part: Since each piece is kosher, each can be eaten, even one after the other! Tosafos (Chullin 100a), Tosafos Rid (BB 31b), Rashba (seen in the Beis Yoseif YD 109) hold that this is true ONLY if eaten at separate times., but the Rosh (Chullin ad loc, 7:35) permits even a stew containing the three combined! How can this be? After all, when all is said and done, wasn’t one of the pieces of meat the non-kosher one? Didn’t the person, at some point in time, eat that non-kosher piece?</p>
<p>R YB Soloveitchik (<em>Yarchei Kalah Shiur</em>, August 1982) discussed the topic of <em>bein hashemashos </em>(twilight) as seen in <em>halakhah</em>. The case he brought was that of an <em>esrog </em>that is used only for part of <em>Sukkos</em>. The gemara concludes that since it was sanctified for a mitzvah on a given day, it may not be used for personal enjoyment (e.g. eaten) on that day. And <em>bein hashemashos </em>(<em>Bh”Sh</em>) is included in that day. However, there is a safeiq whether <em>Bh”Sh</em> is part of the previous day or part of the next day. Therefor, since it is holy for <em>Bh”Sh</em>, it is not to be used the entire next day either.</p>
<p>Rav Soloveitchik points out the obvious dilemma. There are only two possibilities:</p>
<ol>
<li>Twighlight is part of the first day. In which case, the <em>esrog </em>is holy and prohibited until the end of the first day, which would be the end of <em>bein hashemashos</em>. Or,</li>
<li>It is part of the second day. Then, the <em>esrog </em>should be prohibited until the start of <em>Bh”Sh</em>.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you want to play safe, then prohibit personal use until the end of <em>Bh”Sh</em>. Prohibiting it the entire next day is declaring <em>bein hashmashos </em>to be actually part of both days. It continues holiness from the previous day, and thereby continues it into the next as well.</p>
<p>According to Rav Soloveitchik, this is not just an oddity about <em>Bh”Sh</em>, but a point about <em>safeiq </em>in general. <em>Safeiq</em> does not mean “either A or not-A, but I don’t know which”. but is itself a third valid state. Similarly, he writes in Ish haHalakhah that halachic logic is multivalent, it isn’t the simple true-vs.-false of Aristotelian logic. There is no law of excluded middle asserting that every claim must be either true or false and no other alternative exists.</p>
<p>We also have indication from the language of the <em>gemara </em>that <em>safeiq </em>is treated as a combination of the two options. When describing the widow of a <em>kohein </em>that may or may not have lineage that would invalidate him for that role, the expression used is “<em>almanas isah</em>”, literally: “a dough’s widow”. (Kesuvos 14a. The rishonim ad loc debate the nature of the uncertainty in this case.) The doubt is called a “dough”, a mixture.</p>
<p>We also saw non-Aristotilian nature of halakhic logic when looking at <a title="Aspaqlaria: Eilu vaEilu, part 2" href="http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/03/eilu-vaeilu-part-ii.shtml">Rav Tzadoq haKohein’s explanation of “<em>eilu va’eilu</em>” and halachic plurality</a>. I quoted from (Resisei Laila, #17).</p>
<blockquote><p>Whenever a new thing about the Torah is found by a wise person, simultaneously arises its opposite… When it comes to the realm of <em>po’al </em>(action), it can’t be that two [contradictory] things are true simultaneously. In the realm of <em>machashavah </em>(thought) on the other hand, it is impossible for a person to think about one thing without considering the opposite.</p></blockquote>
<p>This idea allows us to answer our two questions of <em>birur</em>: how all three pieces of meat may be eaten, and how <em>bein hashmashos </em>can be treated as though it is the part of both days. In a case of <em>parish</em>, where the physical reality was unknown, the person inevitably reflects on both possibilities. As Rav Tzadoq said about <em>machloqes </em>– in the world of the mind, we entertain both possibilities at once. The questionis therefore not one of unknown physics, but one of known perceptive state — the person will be mentally conflicted.</p>
<p>In the case of <em>Bh”Sh</em>, twighlight is equally thought of us both days, and therefore is both. That’s how we experience it.</p>
<p>In the case of the three pieces of meat, the person’s perception of each is “probably from a kosher cut”. <strong>That</strong> is the reality we must judge. It is true for each peice, therefore each peice is kosher. And then the Rosh says this is true eternally, while most <em>rishonim </em>say that if we combine them into a stew, our perception changes, or at least <em>halakhah </em>wants to encourage it to and therefore the halakhah does as well.</p>
<p>The rule for <em>parish</em> is not the statistics of a particular possible scientific, objective, realities, it’s a psychology of “probabily good meat” that is assigned a <em>halakhah</em> of definitely kosher.</p><div class="feedflare">
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