[Avodah] Dishwashers 1

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Mon Dec 14 11:13:50 PST 2009


On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 04:09pm GMT, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
: In an offlist dialogue we discussed how precise analogies must be
: in halachah

It was really more about the precision of categories. You can't just say
that just because P is true of X, it's also true of Y.

The case was where I asked RRW:
> A small amount in a taaroves made by a nachri is batul. Is the same
> true when a nachri, with aforethought, destroys a food's tzurah?

Which is really a different thing than RRW's example here:
: For a highly imprecise analogy, consider that we use the Babylonian
: "yardstick" for v'sein tal umatar all throughout the golah even though
: we are only "Bavel" by not being EY! Our agricultural climate is very
: different

Here it's not about the question of making analogies across halakhic
categories. (RRW is making a loose analogy?)

It seems ritualized away the direct point of the mitzvah, making it
about the timing in Bavel as an archetypal mitzvah. Conveying the
message via rite rather than directly.

I think someone similar (but only by analogy) to RRW's discussion with
RnCL. On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 05:31pm GMT, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com
wrote:
: Why not test "bishul" DIRECTLY!

RnCL already expressed her belief that "bishul" here isn't really
cooking, it's derekh bishul as defined by a shiur that was halakhah
leMoshe miSinai. Thus, we're not supposed to be dealing with cooking,
but with something defined ritually.

BTW, related could well be the question about the AhS and RMF on whether
one cooks the tea leaves. Even though the chemistry is the same as if you
soak the same leaves longer in water that isn't yad soledes bo, perhaps
the fact that the shiur is met and actually does hasten the process,
it gets a chalos sheim bishul without actually cooking. Efshar lomar.

Certainly something along those lines must be invoked to permit adding
something to a keli shelishi that contains water so hot it was rarely
found in a 1st cent CE home even on the kira.

Abstracting from physical reality to chalos sheim.

Getting back to where my off-list discussion began, on Fri, Dec 04,
2009 at 06:11pm GMT, rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com
posted to Avodah:
: We have a presumption that Pogeim is ONLY a bedi'avad Not a lechatchilah.

Which is why I didn't know how we can lump it and a nakhri commiting
bitul together, since the latter *is* described by the gemara as mutar
lekhat-chilah.

Also, if I am to compare bitul a"y nakhri with kol de'efshar levareir,
then it what sense is it lekhat-chilah? To put it another way, birur of
doubt and bitul are different things. Here there is no doubt.

The second major room for leniency is meisiach lefi tumo. Here we /could/
discuss efshar levareir, and whether experimental evidence that they do
lie can undo our ability to rely on such sichah.


This is my bottom line list of problems on this thread, and why I
haven't just dropped it:

1- We see a strong shift from what Chazal said we require, which we
still see WRT beer (as one example) with what we today in Israel and
the US say we require.

I don't mean require a qulah, I mean lekhat-chilah. IOW, one leaves the
gemara believing that such food is no less kosher than 100% shechutah
beef.

When did this happen? Why? Where are the subsequent teshuvos? It would
seem to post-date the IM, but the only support I have gotten was
"major posqim hold". We're living our lives by these rules -- am I alone
in wondering where are the mar'eh meqomos?

2- I have a hard time with the hard line taken by a number of posters
given how many qehillos manage on "lists". Including RSBA, RAF and RnCL.
We're not talking only the O-lite or even only a particular wing
of O. And even today, where there is talk of moving to symbols -- the
discussion has more to do with the reliability and usability of symbols;
I haven't seen anything about the lists being a problem because of
relying on qulos.

LBD and Kedassia, relying on qulah upon qulah as one of our chaveirim
described it? Do we really want to imply that?

Could it be that the existence of hechsheirim removed the very umdena
that would have originally made them redundant? IOW, now that the food
has a hechsher, there is no bitul a"y nakhri, since there is conscious
attention that it's accomodating the Jewish market, and we also are
efsharim levareir far more? But in a world without hechsheirim, there
really is far less need to bother setting them up?

3- How much of the shift is due to timtum haleiv? Are we saying: Yeah,
it's mutar, but we want to avoid spiritual damage.

And if so, does something that is mutar lekhat-chilah cause timtum
haleiv? Is timtum caused by eating tarfus or eating issur?

Much of what motivates me in this discussion is my mindset (is it due to
Litvisher roots?) having a problem with assigining negative metaphysical
power to something that the gemara tells me is as okay as if it wasn't
there, or that worrying about such a milsa delo shechikhah is unnecessary.

I also have a problem trying to believe Chazal would tell me it's
unnecessary and yet it is still damaging.

IOW, this goes back, in part, to my "does a mezuzah really protect?"
monomania.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
Fax: (270) 514-1507



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