[Avodah] Bug Checker Magnifying Lamp - Cool Light

[Daniel M. Israel]

On Jun 20, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
> The same applies to the use of magnifying glasses or jewelers' loupes
> in checking tefillin and mezuzos. If a defect is not visible to the
> naked eye it's kosher, but the magnifying glass helps find defects that
> *are* visible. After one finds a defect with the glass, one looks at
> it without the glass to see whether it's still visible, and if it isn't
> then it doesn't need fixing.


Is that really commonly done in practice?  My sense is that the opposite approach is true, one looks for defects with the naked eye *first* and then if one sees something that is safek, one uses the glass to confirm.  The risk in the method you describe is (a) once one knows a defect is there, it is hard to not have that influence one's judgement of "is it visible" and (b) even if one decides it is not visible, how many of us would feel completely comfortable relying on "well it is vadai there, because I saw it, but it is too small to count?"

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu

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