[Avodah] Chezkas Kehunah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 10:05:38PM -0500, RJS jew at when.com wrote:
: I just spoke spoke to a Rabbi that takes all halachic questions over the
: phone professionally. We pretty much had the following conversation....

There is much in this post I wouldn't have felt comfortable raising in
public. I'm not sure if you're admitting that you duped a rabbi in order
to get his opinion on kohanim, or just said something about a real
person's history...

However, now that the post was approved and the damage done...

The Rav in question did not assume every kohein is a safeiq. Rather, he
tried to find grounds for creating a specific sefeiq in your case. Both
in the kohein's geneology, and in the wife's story about college life.

Second, you write:
:                       Last but not least,he told me that since there
: are two doubts, I can remain married to mywife (because of sfek sfeka
: deoreita lekula). Heassured me that I can still go up for the first
: alliya, duchen, andeverything- and that our children will be able to
: also....

The fact that a safeiq is treated as a state in itself, and thus can
be treated as part of one side for one question and though it's part of
the other side for another is admittedly weird. We're used to thinking
in two valued logic, and therefore that doubt means the "real value"
of true of false hasn't yet been fully determined. In the kind of logic
we're used to, that would be a paradox. In a multivalent logic (one that
allows values between true and false), the rules are different. The
weirdness is in the gap between the kind of logic Artistotle et al
developed and made part of western culture, and the kind of logic Chazal
used.

(This is *not* in argument with that RETurkel is saying on the "logic"
thread. He includes multivalent logics as part of math.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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