[Avodah] D'rabanan vs. D'oraita

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jun 03, 2008 at 11:38:52AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: And it just so happens that the amount of bitul needed to physically do
: away with kashrut problem also does away with the timtum problem (or why
: does bittul brov or bshishim work, and why any difference if it is
: objectively poison)

Never mind bitul, what about safeiq? The textbook two chatichos shuman,
one of cheilev -- it's mutar to eat all three. The machloqes rishonim
is whether that even means bevas achas. But one can eat all three if on
three separate occasions lekhol hadei'os.

Now, if the cheftzah itself is metamteim es haleiv even if eaten beheter,
how could someone be told he may take a 100% risk of timtum? How could he
even take a 1/3 risk?

: BTW I don't think anyone holds the non-Jewish wet nurses milk is not
: kosher - just not recommended due to timtum.

On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 02:58:29PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: In other words, the same way that we are machmir on meat and fish
: even though current science doesn't identify any health risks with it,
: but that is because it has become accepted as an issur in klal yisrael,
...

(Yes, my reply is more about this thread than the originating one for
RAM's post, "fish and milk".)

To repeat my pet theory: Had the medical prescription been phrased in
terms of anything other than "qasheh letzora'as", it would have been
neglected like much other medical advice in the gemara.

However, invoking the word tzora'as may mean there is something more
spiritual involved, and therefore we were loathe to simply go with the
doctors (declare "nishtanah hateva").

Of course, this implies a belief in spiritual consequences to food BEFORE
this gemara created a minhag/din not to eat it. Which raises the question
of why Chazal would address this case, and not every other danger of
spiritual consequences. Why isn't the wet nurse's milk assur derabbanan?

For that matter, why isn't it assur deOraisa? If issurim deOraisa are
based on / cause metaphysical realities, how do we have something that's
metaphysically harmful with no associated issur?

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 03:14:06AM +0300, Michael Makovi wrote:
: The Rambam tells us that for a SHOGEG violation of a d'rabanan, we don't need
: to do teshuva. My rabbi answered that since a d'rabanan is not an
: intrinsic sin, but rather the sin is only in ignoring or defying the
: words of the rabbis and rebelling against them, there is absolutely no
: sin whatsoever in violating a d'rabanan b'shogeg.

There is a more prosaic explanation.

The mitzvah being violated is lo sosuru. Negligently violating divrei
Chazal isn't "turning away from whatever they tell you". The issur is
phrased in a way that by definition can only include meizid.

: I don't really like the model of mitzvot having intrinsic effects on
: the universe. For example, when I eat treif, or when I put on
: tefillin, I don't really think anything spiritual is happening in the
: universe. Rather, it's that

: 1) It affects yourself - it is educational, whether in your knowledge
: and intellect, or in affecting your behavior (practicing tzedaka will
: make you charitable, etc., as per Sefer haChinuch).

: 2) It shows loyalty to G-d. As Rav Hirsch near the beginning of Sefer
: Bereshit says, our deeds affect the heavens (so to speak) because G-d
: sees what we are doing, and His attitude towards us changes
: accordingly.

I have little use for #2, since /any/ mitzvah would be equally showing
fealty to the Metzaveh. (Contrary to RMM's take on "Toros".) "Lo sirtzach"
or even had He said "Sirtzach". It doesn't explain the function of
any mitzvah since it gives function independent of content. It's true,
but has no explanatory power.

In a followup written on Fri, May 30, 2008 at 01:07:06PM IDT, RMM adds:
: 3) It is stam what G-d wants - For example, G-d wants you to help the
: poor, be nice to others, honor the elderly, clean up the environment,
: etc. He just stam wants them. Not because they pull any spiritual
: strings in the upper worlds to reunify any broken disunity, but
: rather, simple because He wants a world where the poor have what to
: eat and where all His children get along. He intrinsically just wants
: these things in the world.

In Nefesh haChaim I (and perhaps of NhC in general) the main thesis is
that man is the sole link between the worlds, composed of all the forces,
and thus the only means by which physical actions have metaphysical
effect is through the impact on human souls.

This is akin to the sevara RMM tacked onto #2, by pasting it onto #1.
Similarly I would take that whole sevarah that way. RSRH writes that
lehispallel is in hitpa'el because it effects change in Hashem's
response by changing the self. IOW, it's not that Hashem rewards you
for providing what He wants. If that were it, Hashem would simply do it
himself. It's that you become a "doer of what Hashem wants", #1 style,
changing -- in RSRH terms "educating" -- the self and thereby deserve
different treatment.

Similarly RYBS's take on teshuvah. Through teshuvah I can remake myself.
The person who deserved onesh no longer exists.

R' Chaim Volozhiner would add to that the mystical level that this in
turn changes the universe.

Which I could extrapolate from in two different (but not conflicting)
ways:

1- Since the universe exists as a arena in which we prepare ourselves
for Shabbos, it should conform to whatever preparation is necessary. As
the person changes, Hashem should be adapting his corner of the universe
to maximize his potential.

2- In REED's worldview (MmE I, his essay on olamos) the world you live
in is at least as much how we perceive it as what's out there. Thus,
as a person changes from "shoemaker" to "taylor" (to leverage his, and
the Alter of Slabodka's, mashal), the universe evolves from a sea of shoes
to a sea of suits.

: So for me, a d'oraita is not truly intrinsic reality...

I therefore have less problem understanding how a deOraisa can be
transformative in purpose and still create -- rather than reflect --
intrinsic reality.

:                                                       but only
: conventionally so, using "conventional truth" as used by Rabbi Moshe
: Shmuel Glasner in his hakdamah to the Dor Revi'i, that anything
: decided by Chazal is not really really objectively true, but only
: "conventionally true", i.e. it is true insofar only as that it was
: Chazal decided, and tomorrow they can decide something else, and that
: will then be "true"....

"Conventional truth" to me sounds too much like an oxymoron. They define
what is law, which is binding. As the Maharal puts it, Hashem's Truth
simply doesn't fit in this world, and the poseiq decides which pieces
to implement and which to stop (lifsoq). As I put it half a year ago,
by weighing the conflicting values that emerge.

...
: Whereas with a d'rabanan, there is no reason to pretend it is
: intrinsic - humans invented it, so why should we treat it as an
: intrinsic reality? It is but a fence, a protection, to what is
: "intrinsic", and as such, the only possible sin is in willfully
: rebelling. A shogeg sin in a d'rabanan involves no rebellion, and it
: does not involve anything "intrinsic".

Perhaps one should distinguish between gezeiros, which protect people from
issurim through habit or accident, and other dinim derabbanon. The above
reasoning has mitzvah as the cause of intrinsic reality, which means that
new mitzvos can still reflect realities -- because they will perforce
engineer new ones. Particularly legislation like Chanukah candles which
doesn't protect from sin, it commemorates.

: Ramban says that it is Chazal who decided that d'rabanans would be
: safek l'kula, and perhaps it is indeed so.
: But all the same, I'd say that perhaps the Torah itself told us (in
: Torah She'be'al Pe) this! A d'rabanan is invented by humans and is not
: "intrinsic" (whether the intrinsic-ness is truly intrinsic like most
: say or simply metaphorically so as I would have it), and so there is
: no reason to take it seriously unless it is deliberate. If it is in
: doubt, then we are merely concerned that you *might* do something that
: *might* bring you to an intrinsic d'oraita sin - every d'rabanan is
: already a safek (that you may do a d'oraita sin), and so a doubtful
: d'rabanan is automatically a safek safeka!

On Sun, Jun 01, 2008 at 04:02:32PM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
: Eating non-kosher it would seem is intrinsically harmful for a
: person's soul even if they eat it b'heter.

Here's where my model fails.

Because if the supernatural effect is a product of the mitzvah or issur,
then the "power" is in the halakhah of the action, not the nature
of the cheftzah. Whether it is the timtum haleiv caused by treifos,
or the protective power of a mezuzah. (The latter is the example with
which I usually express my confusion on the topic when it comes up here
on Avodah.)

OTOH, the problems with associating it with the cheftzah are the cases
I cited above -- why do we allow mi'ut to be a birur allowing us to play
russian roullete with our souls? Why aren't all these dangers deOraisa,
which get left for the rabbanan to protect us from? And why isn't there
an issur hana'ah (or even theoretical issur achilah) on that milk from
a treif-eating wet nurse?

And the bigger problem -- where is midas hadin in this? When dealing in
olam hazeh, I need my actions to have predictable consequences. "Hakol
biydei Shamayim chutz mitzinim upachin" because if I can't know that
not wearing a coat increases my chance of getting sick, how can I
make decisions? What value does bechirah have without the ability to
plan? #2, teva allows for hesteir panim.

But metaphysical causality by things other than compliance or violation
of halakhah hides sechar va'onesh without such offsetting rationale.

Sorry for bringing it up again. I think I do it semiannually. The
only way to stop the ritual is to help me find an answer. Thanks.

: The Ran in his Drashos says this explicitly. In the 11th drasha ...
:                                              He then explains that
: even though eating non-kosher food is harmful the mitzva of listening
: to Chachamim may counterbalance the harmful effects...

Then it would seem that at the end of everything, while the Ran
associates the koach with the spiritual nature behind the cheftzah, the
effects are the same as if one said it inhered in the halakhah. If
one listens to the chakhamim, the cheftzah has no negative power.

That doesn't help the guy who checked the mezuzah when he was supposed
to but because kelapai Shemaya galya that it's pasul, he gets less
shemirah. Unless one goes beyond the Ran and says that listening to the
chakhamim not only protects, but also provides metaphysical effects.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 46th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        6 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Netzach sheb'Malchus: How can some forms of
Fax: (270) 514-1507                         "unity" be over domineering?