[Avodah] Forms of Bitul

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 12:16:37AM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
: While the three pieces or Yoreh Deah siman 109 case of bitul is derived from
: acharei rabim l'hatos, the milk falling into meat stew min b'aino mino Yoreh
: Deah siman 98 type case of bitul appears to be derived from Bamidbar 6:19
: (which allows/requires cooking of the kohen's portion of the leg in with the
: rest of the nazir's shlamim, meaning that it will give taste to the shlamim)
: (see Chullin 98a).  And even though Tosphos appears to understand this as
: not being a drasha gamura, they, and the rest of the majority who hold that
: bittul b'shishim for min v'aino mino is min haTorah clearly do not base this
: assessment on acharei rabim l'hatos...

I am not entirely conflating the two, I am considering them subtypes of
a single general issue. But in any case...

1- Lemaaseh, we actually hold 1:60 is derabbanan, and that even bishul
beta'aroves (siman 98 and Chulin 98) only requires a rov deOraisa. Which
means the derashah from the nazir's shelamim is an asmachta. So if my
theory is problematic on these grounds, it's only a problem according
to a shitah we don't follow.

2- Siman 109 is about real taaroves which is batil because of acharei
rabim. Even according to those who consider a cooked davar lach to be
a special case (requiring 1:60) deOraisa, there is still a connection
between taaroves and kol deparish. The question is specific to how
*liquids* mix. But again, I wasn't considering their shitah; my centerfuge
restoring the issur from out of the taaroves was specifically from the
context of how we hold. Now I am just trying to show that the existence
of a machloqes doesn't mean I got the basic hashkafic venue wrong,
even if I didn't bother exploring the other side.

Besides, the point about being from the same pasuq was one connecting
factor among many. So was the "mixture" language of chazal and the SA
when dealing with kol deparish. As is RYBS's shitah that safeiq uses a
multivalent logic (logic with values more than just the black-and-white
of "true" vs "false"), that defies the law of contradiction (ie halachic
logic allows considering something somewhat true and somewhat false at
the same time).

What I did was take this mixed logical state I heard from RYBS, or Rashi's
"'isa' lashon safeiq hu" (or the Torah's "erev"), and said it's a sibling
to physical mixtures. A different subclass of the same basic worldview.

This then allowed me to fit much of the laws of birur in my general
theory about what halachic "metzi'us" and "mamashus" mean.

...
: So, as I have been trying to argue from the beginning, I just don't see how
: you can bring any proofs or include in the discussion the Yoreh Deah siman
: 98 type case of taste bitul.  At most your discussion would surely have to
: be limited to comparing the Yoreh Deah siman 109 type case of bitul, and
: rov.  And even there, I am not sure you get the same results for a rov
: de'iqah leqaman and deleisa leqaman.

Why not? Kol deparish applies to both.

: And your linking up to regular forms of safek seems very difficult too.
: Those who understand the principle of safek d'orisa l'chumra to be d'orisa...
: (the Rashba, the Ran and Tosphos), do not, as far as I am aware, link it to
: any of the psukim referred to above.  And clearly the majority (according,
: inter alia, to Rav Ovadiah Yosef) who hold that the principle of safek
: d'orisa l'chumra is d'rabbanan basically are holding that once there is a
: safek, according to the Torah the matter is completely mutar ...

The way I see it, all agree that in a case of rov, it would be assur
de'oraisa, and in a case of mi'ut, it would not. The question becomes
whether the kellal is "assur if rov" or "mutar if mi'ut", with a nafqa
mina when the safeiq is kemechtza al mechtza.

>From this way of looking at the world, saying safeiq deOraisa lechumera
doesn't eliminate the notion of safeiq from the deOraisa lexicon. Because
that would deny the whole spectrum, and thus also eliminate rov.

...
:> I hear chazal talking about safeiq as though it were a mixture. Why not
:> take that at face value, rather than imposing statistics on a model that
:> predates the field by just under 3 millenia (Sinai to Pascal or Fermat)?

: So how about the really classic safek - the timtum, or the koi?  As I
: understand the debate, some hold that the tumtum is a beriah in and of
: itself, and some hold it is a safek, but those who hold such a person is a
: safek hold that "really" such a person is a man or a woman, we just don't
: know which, it is not as though essentially and to the Torah such a half man
: half woman exists....

Hold on to this for RDR's post (below).

:> RYBS uses the notion of mixed identity, or as he put it, that halakhah
:> doesn't use a bivalent (black-and-white, true-vs-falase) logic in Ish
:> haHalakhah, as well as in a yarchei kallah shiur I attended one Elul in
:> the early 80s. Bein hashemashos is a safeiq yom safeiq lailah, but it's
:> also when the two days overlap (eg it extends the esrog's status as a
:> devar mitzvah to the subsequent day).

: But the esrog's status is rabbinic - and therefore the fact that the rabbis
: extended it because *we* are not sure, doesn't mean that there is anything
: intrinsically a mixed identity about bein hashmashos, just that we don't
: know what it is.

But "not sure" means "and therefore say it's both". Whether the
uncertainty is rabbinic or Torahitic, that's not the way we today (aside
from Quantum Mechanics) think of "don't know". Chazal treat unknowns as
a mixture, (1) for both kinds of unknown, and (2) that is entirely alien
to western culture, ever since Aristo codified the logical principles
of the Law of Excluded Middle and Law of Contradiction. In any context,
this is a novel idea worthy of playing out what it say about how chazal
see the world.

On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 02:36:33PM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
> See Rabbi Bensimon's commentary on Rabbi Rosen's commentary on the  
> Rambam's H. Shabbos (details below) pp. 23-29, where he argues that  
> there are two distinct types of sfeikos, with different rules.  One type  
> is a "safek b'etzem", which includes both of these examples.  A safek  
> b'etzem is something about which we know all of the relevant facts but  
> still can't decide how to categorize it halachically.  The other type is  
> a "safek b'geder siba", for which if we knew all of the relevant facts  
> (what is the source of each piece of meat?) we would be able to  
> categorize it halachically.  So while I agree with your basic point that  
> RMB is confusing two distinct categories, I think these examples are red  
> herrings.

On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 03:33:21PM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
: How would you characterise bein hashmashos using Rabbi Bensimon's typology?
: I would have thought it would have be considered a safek b'etzem...

It might depend on the nature of the safeiq.

If you hold that every moment is a safeiq, that the day switches at some
point in time between sunset and tzeis and we can't tell when, then it
is a safeiq begeder siba. If it's a safeiq whether the day switches at
sunset or at tzeis, perhaps that's because it's a sadfeiq be'etzem --
we know the two moments, we don't know which is halachically meaningful.

: So I don't think my examples of a timtum or a koi are red herrings.  These
: examples, ie of safek b'etzem are at the heart of the form of safek that RMB
: wants to utilise to derive his quasi quantum mechanical theology....

Timtum and koi are sefeiqos in pesaq, not in biology. Even if we gave
the metumtum a full body MRI, s/he is still begeder safeiq. It's a
safeiq be'eztzem.

The three chatichos are begeder siba, a safeiq because we don't know
the metzi'us.


Please, call my idea Kantian, Phenomenological, Experiential, Existential
or Psychological, but not QM. The essence of the whole theory (of which
safeiq is a part) is the rationalist version of the Nefesh haChaim's
stance, that it's only through the human soul that actions impact
metaphysics. And therefore halachic impact isn't based on what is, but
how what is impacts people. QM would be very much the opposite, tying
physics to metaphysics directly on a level well beyond human experience
or even anything that fits common sense.

IOW, I am suggesting that the sevara behind safeiq is a subtype of that for
mixtures because when a person is in doubt, he entertains both conflicting
possibilities.

BTW, I invoke a different dichotomy. If we ever further confuse matters
by going beyond kol deparish and into kol qavua, I would cite R' Aqiva
Eiger on the difference between a safeiq in metzi'us and one in din. We
don't know and never established if this was issur or heter, it's a safeiq
in metzi'us. And for that, we honor rov. If we once established a din,
but now don't know which piece the din went to, it is a safeiq in what
that din was, for which rov doesn't help.

So, I can now speak of three kinds of sefeiqos:

1- The safeiq is on the level of what is the metzi'us. Kol deparish.
2- There once was a known din, so the safeiq is in what that din is. Kol
   qavuah.
3- There is a safeiq in how to assign a din to a metzi'us -- safeiq
   be'etzem.

When I speak of safeiq being a kind of taaroves because safeiq creates
a mixture of identity in the affected people's minds, I am only talking
about #1. It's something I'm saying about what "metzi'us" means, and
therefore doesn't touch sefeiqos in a specific item that was qavua or
in pesaq on an issue in general.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
micha at aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
Fax: (270) 514-1507