[Avodah] eye pains on shabbat

[Eli Turkel]

> So we have three senses of the term on the table:
> 1- RAbhR: theory changed
> 2- The population changed due to breeding, nutrition and medicine
> 3- The biology changed

First a warning - when I quote ROY it means the daf distributed by his
grandson quoting ROY

In this daf it states explicitly that things changes of tens of years
and seems to imply #3. When CI states that the semen and urine ducts
changed since chazal he strongly implies #3. Without going through
myriad of cases, in many poskim imply #3.

Yehuda Levi in "Science and Torah" gives many examples of #2

> R' Yaakov Menken (of torah.org) noted to me in a discussion that nishtaneh
> hateva in the usual sense (I think #3 is the one most contemporary
> observant Jews assume) is belief in evolution.

I heard from Dr. Steinberg many years ago (and I believe is in his
encyclopedia) that #3 implies evolution. Furthermore, evolution on a
scale much faster than scientists would agree. i.e. no scientist would
agree to evolution in the human body over a period of 2 thousand years
not to be speak of decades and centuries. This is one of the reasons
(among others) that scientists speak in terms of millions of years for
natural evolution. For some halachot nutrition can explain changes. In
many others we have to assume the gemara should not be interpreted
literally but as aggadah/metaphorically

What all this assumes is based on Rambam, RAbhR, and Geonim. However,
numerous rishonim had a different viewpoint and this seems to be accepted
by many achronim.



[Email #2. -micha]

> Some recent studies show that common eye problems are linked to heart
> disease. An international group of researchers found that diabetic
> retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness in the U.S., is also a warning
> sign of heart failure....

Rbn Katz has defended Chazal and shown one should not be quick to be
machmir against them Nevertheless, I assume R. Elyashiv was talking
about some external injury to the eye and not internal problems that
affect the eye.

kol tuv
Eli Turkel