[Avodah] timtum halev

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:04am IST, R Eli Turkel replied to RAM:
:> It seems to me that in the dispute over whether Chilul Shabos for
:> Sakana is "hutrah" or "dechuyah", there is comparatively little
:> difference in Halacha L'Maaseh. The main differences are in these
:> metaphysical areas.

: I didn't understand the difference. Even if pikuach nefesh is dechuya
: the halacha is that gedolei yisroel (interpreted as the great rabbis)
: should be the ones to do saving. There is no chillul shabbat even if
: it turns out that there was no danger.

First, WRT RAM's statement, there is a nafqa mina lemaaseh between
huterah and dekhuyah. "Comparatively little" reason is still grounds for
many a machloqes. There is no proof from the rarity of the difference
that the iqar machloqes is about metaphysics.

(The textbook nafqa mina: Can a healthy person eat food cooked on
Shabbos for a sick person?

(Case 2: Someone who must eat meat on Shabbos to live
but there is nothing nishchat should eat neveilah or should have meat
shechted for him on Shabbos. If Shabbos is hutrah, then shecht the meat;
if it's dechuyah, then neveilah is the lesser issur to be overridden.

(RMF has another case in the IM: Should a doctor try to move his on-call
hours so as minimize being on-call on Shabbos, or should he recognize
that he would be more diligent for his own patients, and therefore not do
so? The IM sides with the latter -- take Shabbos on-call hours. RMShinnar
once cited the Minchas Asher as bringing down this IM and disagreeing,
saying one should avoid being on call. Not because he holds necessarily
dekhuyah, but even if hutera. Rather, the MA is concerned about the
family's Shabbos, not just his own.)

Chemo causes medical damage. However, for someone who r"l needs chemo,
he would still be ill advised to avoid that damage.

Similarly, saying that Shabbos is dekhuyah for piquach nefesh would
mean that there is spiritual damage being done by the chillul Shabbos,
but the offsetting advantage to one's neshamah of saving a life is so
much greater, the cost is worth it.

This parallels the Taz YD 81 s"q 12 who explicitly says that the problem
with nursing from someone who eats treif is even if she ate treif beheter,
eg piquach nefesh.

As my modified position goes -- the "Litvisher" approach of assuming
that all metaphysical causality involves cheftzah->gavra->effect and
never directly from cheftza to effect. Just that the discussion often
shorthands by not spelling out every step in the chain.


RAM also asks:
> What about someone whose tefillin had been checked over the years by a
> dozen expert sofrim, and only decades later was it discovered that an
> entire word was missing; Hashem can give him all sorts of credits for
> trying, but do you think that he'll really get full credit as if the
> word had been there all along?"

In terms of "credit", I would argue yes. If he did everything halakhah
requires of him -- lefum tzaarah agra. Nothing about lefum cheftza.

However, once he knows that his tefillin was pasul, doesn't think
change how he relates back to what he did? He isn't the same person as
someone who would have found out the tefillin was kasher. So in terms
of hashgachah, he needs a different sort of push from HQBH.

On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:47pm EDT, R David Cohen wrote:
: Well, given that "chetzi shiur assur min haTorah", voluntarily consuming a
: minuscule amount WILL cause timtum to a small degree.

OTOH, me'iqar hadin you can eat three pieces of fat -- 2 shuman, 1
cheilev, where there is a safeiq which is which -- even though you will
definitely eat a full piece of cheilev.

As I said, this ties back to the rules of birur -- is a mezuzah with a
chezqas kashrus but kelapei Shemaya galya is flawed metaphysically the
same as one that physically is kasher?

(And if a tree that falls in the forest doesn't make a sound, does any of
this discussion make any sense? There is no unknown state of the mezuzah
to contrast to its chezqas kashrus.)


On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 6:06pm EDT, RDR wrote:
: >But if the people involved didn't know a Jew nursed form a
: >nachriah,this modified position would argue there is no timtum.

: But that's not what the Rama says...

(We're discussing YD 81:7.)

Actually, the Rama talks about two cases:

First: where an adult is picking a meineqes for the child, and

Second (as the Shakh s"q 9 understands him): should the parents stop a
child from the issur of eating non-kosher, even if the child isn't up
to chinukh on the matter.

In both cases, people know what the child is eating. It's not limited
to the state of the milk or food as per qelapei Shemaya galya.

And in fact, the Shakh adds "shemaziq lo *bizqeinuso*".

Well, let's assume that all the metaphysical causality talk is shorthand,
leaving out the to-them-obvious human step in between cause and effect.

Then what's the Shakh's understanding of the Rama? Don't feed a kid treif
because you can't keep him from learning about it and being shaped by
it as an adult.

First, midina (at least as he writes in the Mapa), the child may be given
this milk. So it would seem that the point of the issur is not to avoid
timtum, or else HQBH would have assured using a meineqes who eats treif.

The case in the medrash with Rebbe and Antoninus, where Rebbe's mother
influences Antuninus by being his meineqes (eg see medrash quoted by Tos
AZ 10b d"h "amar leih im kein") is much like the discussion of whether
Rebbe was telling King Artvon of Persia that the mezuzah protects or
was telling him that Artvon can gain protection through it. Contrast to
the Bavli, Shabbos 32, where it's a lack of *kavod* for the mezuzah
which could ch"v cause one's chlidren to die young.

Back to the Rama:
:                                    Here's the Darkei Moshe s.k. 9
: (which, incidentally, doesn't use the term "timtum"): "The Ran Perek
: Ein Ma'amidin [7a] and the end of Perek Heresh in Yevamos wrote that
: there are those who prohibit permitting a child to suckle from a
: gentile when a Jewish wetnurse is available because the milk of a
: gentile is <not kosher>.  In the absence of a Jewish wetnurse it is
: permitted because [the absence of human] milk is dangerous for a
: child...

This is different than the Mapa, where the Rama weites that the whole
concern is extrahalachic. Not hutera/dekhuya by piquach nefesh.

...
: I think it's clear that both the Rashba and the Hagahos Ashrei were
: worried that milk of non-Jews is physically different than milk of
: Jews, and endangers the character of those who drink it.  And don't
: forget, we're talking about drinkers who are too young to study issur
: vaheter.

Or that knowing that one ate these things beheter could make it easier
or them to try them again. Kind of like Chava -- "I touched the tree,
nothing happened, let's see what happens if I eat from it..."

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
micha at aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
http://www.aishdas.org   Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
Fax: (270) 514-1507      a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter