[Avodah] Rav Keller's JO article on evolution

[Zvi Lampel]

Tue, 3 Oct 2006 from: ""David Riceman"" <driceman at worldnet.att.net> 

> From: ""Zvi Lampel"" <hlampel at thejnet.com> (citing Sefer HaIkkarim) 

> ""When witnesses testify, we do not say, let's tweak the time or interpret 
> the testimony to keep the witnesses innocent of perjury. To illustrate: 
> let's say they testified that Reuven killed Shimon on the first day of the 
> week, and then their testimony is proved false. We do not say, let's 
> interpret their testimony to prevent them from being false witnesses. 
> Let's say that by ""on the first day of the 'week' "" they meant on the 
> first of the seven-year sabbatical cycle (the ""week"" of years). Or let's 
> say that by ""he killed him"" they meant he refused to give him alms, which 
> would support him; or they meant he did not teach him the Torah, [which 
> is, after all,] the true source of life in the World to Come. We do not 
> say any of this because a testimony must be understood naturally, and if 
> witnesses are shown to have given false testimony, they must be put to 
> death, and we do not interpret their words in ways to save them...""

>This may be tangential to your main point, but how do you harmonize this 
with Pesahim 11b ""Zeh yodeia b'ibburo shel hodesh v'zeh eino yodeia""? See 
the whole sugya there (which extends to 12b).< 

Y'yashar kochacha on so quickly connecting the two sources. They harmonize beautifully. The sugya in Pesachim is dealing with accepting testimony that is possibly imprecise, given the factor of innocent human error, attempting to understand what the witness really means. This contrasts with the opposite idea in Rav Yosef Albo's piece: There, precision is not the issue, but the normal meaning of words. In such cases, we do not reinterpret someone's testimony to mean something we really know is different from what he really meant.

Zvi Lampel 
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