[Avodah] Theoretical and Real Shiurim

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2012 at 04:13:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> On 5/04/2012 3:46 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> Let's take a ballpark number of the amah of an even 44cm, yielding an
>> etzba of 1.83 cm, or a revi'is of 20 ml. (Given the approximation from
>> the data, I'm rounding.) A kezayis would be 6.6 cc.
>
> Um, something's gone terribly wrong with that calculation.  An amah
> of 44 cm gives a revi'is of 66.55 ml, and thus a beitza of 44.37 cm^3
> and a kezayis of either 22.18 cm^3 or 14.79 cm^3, depending on whether
> you use 1/2 or a 1/3.

Let me do it stepwise:

44 cm/ammah / 24 etzba/amah = 1.3 cm / etzbah
2 x 2 x 2.7 etzbah = 3.67 x 3.67 x 4.95 cm = 19.8 cc
19.8 cc/reviis / 3 reviis/kezayis = 6.6 cc/kezayis.

No, it checks.



On Thu, Apr 05, 2012 at 03:10:05PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> I really think that the argument has to be halachic, or else we need
>> to be machmir anyway so as not to violate minhag Yisrael on the range
>> of accepted pesaqim. No? Accepted halakhah (nispasheit lekhol Yisrael)
>> creates legal authority.

> See, I can't agree with that.  Not when it's clearly a mistake.  Not  
> when there was clearly a lack of knowledge and a chumra was created for  
> the purpose of being super-extra-positively-safe.

G-d Himself stuck up for R' Eliezer's pesaq on tanur shel achnai. Being
right didn't make his opinion law. Legal process does -- acharei rabim
lehatos.

Notice that this error in understanding what a keli is created an
unnecessary chumerah. Much like erring on the side of overly large
zeisim -- when speaking of a minimum.

...
> Furthermore, there is no universally accepted shiur.  There are  
> different shitot.  So how can any of them, or even all of them in the  
> aggregate, replace the reality?

Halakhah is a legal system. Its predicates are about laws, not reality.

As I wrote in reply to R' David ben Haim's article, "Torah as Real as
It Gets" (sometimes titled, "Kzayit: Rashi Almost Never Saw an Olive")
in The Jewish Press
<http://www.jewishpress.com/judaism/kzayit-torah-as-real-as-it-gets/2012/03/29>:

    Halakhah is not "as real as it gets". There is a difference in kind
    between trying to describe reality, and between defining law. We
    have other cases where law was based on things we currently do not
    believe about reality. E.g. The notion that maggots found within
    meat are kosher because they are produced abiogenetically from the
    meat. Or that one may kill lice on Shabbos, because they too are not
    born through sexual reproduction. Or that one may violate Shabbos
    to save a baby born prematurely in the 7th month, but one born in
    the 8th month isn't going to survive anyway the gemara tells you
    not to violate Shabbos to save it.

    And there are numerous approaches to how to deal with those
    issues. Some reexplain the law using today's understanding. Perhaps
    because the difference between our sages' notion of reality and
    what's really there isn't halachically significant. Others, such as
    the Vilna Gaon and Rav Kook, allow the new scientific knowledge to
    cause new stringency, but not new leniency. But none allow dismissing
    established and accepted law. Simply because generations of widespread
    acceptance creates legal authority.

    Technical knowledge about the size of olives in the classical period
    similarly would have little impact on binding law. Undoing law
    requires proving it is illegal. Not simply that it is superfluous
    or without a meaningful cause. So, for someone for whom more
    than a minimum of matzah would be dangerous (ciliac or other
    gluten intolerance, diabetes), who would thereby be violating laws
    about preserving health, now have grounds for leniency rather than
    stretching their medical limits. Similarly when the error in olive
    size means overestimating how rapidly a sick person would eat on Yom
    Kippur, we may be forced to adjust the top limit. In those cases,
    the error leads to legal flaws.

    The Oral Law is just that oral. Drift was built into the system. We
    aren't preserving facts, we are working a legal process. The issue
    isn't empirical accuracy but legal authority.

And:

    I have a problem with the underlying worldview more than that
    conclusion. There is way too much emphasis being put on science and
    technology. The Torah isn't out to describe the world, it's out to
    describe how to be better people. Empirical facts are being placed
    in an overrated role. To use R' Soloveitchik's typologies, Cognitive
    Man is proving so successful in science, even the Man of Faith is
    expected to be toeing that same line. The Man of Faith, though, is
    redeemed through community. Not personal confrontation with physics.

This is of a peice with my recurring theme that halakhah cares more
about first hand perception than reality, under the assumption that
it's experience, not abstract knowledge that shapes personality and thus
(in RYBS terms) leads to redemption.

Adam I might be an empiricist, Adam II is an existentialist.


I already gave some overly rehashed examples of process being binding
despite the facts:

1- Kosher meat maggots

2- Killing lice of a breed that has no (read: microscopic) eggs on Shabbos

3- 8th month newborns

4- Tanur shel achnai

Here's another:

5- Rambam, Hil' Shemitah veYovel 10:5 says the geonim of EY had a broken
mesorah about which year was shemittah (derabbanban), because the didn't
account for shemittah during bayis I and II. Still, he says their ruling
is binding anyway.

> If I understand you, you're concerned that changing this thing based on  
> real physical evidence could undermine rabbinic authority in general.   

No, I'm saying that the law is binding due to that authority. Not that
it "COULD undermine", but that dismissing the pesaq already crosses that
bridge.

> Again, even given the fact that people like Rashi were miles above us in  
> Torah knowledge, that doesn't mean that they were miles above us in all  
> knowledge.

Not an issue for me. I'm discussing legal authority, not notions of
daas Torah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
micha at aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
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