[Avodah] When Things Are Only MAYBE Assur

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 07:32:04PM +1000, Meir Rabi wrote:
: It is noted by the Acharonim that when the Gemara discusses questions to do
: with transfer of non-Kosher flavour, there is no suggestion that a
: connoisseur be employed... Why not?
: And perhaps we can ask ...                   how can we have a debate in the
: Gemara about matters of verifiable fact?

: It is therefore proposed that it is not absolutely known if the flavour has
: or has not been transferred...

I was bothered by the first question, and by the absurdity in claiming
that Ashkenazim think the entire volume of the pot is of that which
would give flavor to the substance in it. It is akin to your question
about a kezayis being consercutibely dunked in 1 million pots. There
can't possibly be a physical trace -- taste-giving or not -- that is
sufficient to prohibit.

But I fail to see how casting the question as a safeiq explains our not
hiring a taster.

My answer (discussed here ad nauseum, but the list demographics shifted
since, so I hope it's worth reopening) was more radical and went in an
entirely different direction. If it can't be about physical tastables,
then let's not look at physics.

The word "ta'am" has a meaning other than "taste". "Ta'amei hamitzvos"
"Mai ta'ama?" etc... If you assume "nosein ta'am" refers to how people
are expected to think of the object, all three questions evaporate. The
question is no longer easily measurable, being an about not only
psychology, but presumptions about preferred psychologies.

(Kind of like the difference between a new pot, and the family's
stewpot. Not exactly the same, since a brand new stewpot is pareve,
but it's closer to my intent than determining "flavor".)

: Just imagine we have one Kezayis in our hand which is chopped into several
: pieces. Before us are 10 pots. With our eyes closed or the lights off the
: Kezayis handful is (inadvertently) thrown towards the nest of 10 pots. We
: verify that all the pieces fell into the pot/s, i.e. none are found on the
: floor. Are all the pots Kosher, none?

This case is one of safeiq, not shiur or ta'am, and therefore looks very
different than the serial dunk.

But, FWIW, I gave birur in general the same treatment. It's not a
determination of what happened, it's a determination of how people relate
to the effects, given that we don't know what happened. (With or without
"culpability" for not knowing.)

Thus, even though we know that a knife used for chopping bones most
likely became pasul for shechitah then, not when checked, the state of
the knife remains until it's actually checked. This parallels our default
assumptions: When you see someone sitting in a room, and you return 10
hours later and they are sitting in the same spot, don't you instinctively
wonder why/how they could just sit there for 10 hours? The more likely
possibility that they too left and returned only comes as an afterthought.

And this notion that halakhah refers to reality-as-experienced as opposed
to an objective reality would also explain the kashrus of microscopic
mites.

It's not about what's really out there, or even how the intellect
responds, but the impact of reality on the instinctive level. After all,
isn't the point of halakhah to hone us into better tzalemi E-lokim? What
then does unobservables matter to the basic tafkid? And the unobserved
that could have been in our realm of experience isn't treated as a fact,
it is treated as a collection of doubts. We pasqen on how we wonder what
this thing might be.

Unlike when it was experienced, and we invoke "kavu'ah" rather than
safeiq.

2 chatichos shuman confused with 1 of cheilev produces three kosher pieces
of meat. The only machloqes rishonim is whether we rethink things when
they all get unified into a single stew.

Even though someone who ate two of them in sequence statistically has
a 2/3 chance of having eaten meat that is physically cheilev, it's
irrelevent. He ate two pieces of "meat people think of as 'probably ok'".

Thus, I would be unifying the serial dunker with safeiq, but on a more
abstract level than saying serial dunking is an instance of it.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 25th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or
Fax: (270) 514-1507                          taking control too extreme?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 25th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Netzach sheb'Netzach: When is domination or
Fax: (270) 514-1507                          taking control too extreme?