[Avodah] Kitniyot

[Lisa Liel]

On 3/22/2013 2:57 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 02:33:38PM -0500, Lisa Liel wrote:
>
>> On 3/22/2013 7:50 AM, Kenneth Miller wrote:
>>
>>> But even so, he is in the minority, isn't he? Are there ANY major nosei
>>> keilim or acharonim or poskim who advocate the wholesale abandonment of
>>> this minhag, for Ashkenazim?
>>>
>> Certainly.  But if he brings sources and they don't, it doesn't matter.
>> A daat yachid with sources backing him is preferable to a rov that
>> simply dismisses the issue.
>>
> I disagree. See my most recent blog post
> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2013/03/tzav.shtml>.
> The topic is the implications of the difference between a legislative
> process and a fact-finding one, including the need to think in terms
> of what gives a ruling authority, not what makes the most sense from
> a historical or scientific perspective.
>

With all due respect, mitzvah isn't passive.  It's factitive, which is 
sometimes consider intensive.  The opposite of passive.

And the reason we should correct the mistaken ("evolved") version of 
what a kezayit is is because the current measures lead to violations in 
other areas.  Bal tashchit, for one.  General gasut, for another.  The 
impossibility of finishing a shiur toch kdei dibbur for yet another. 
But the biggest reason of all is that the inflated shiurim were 
obviously the best that the poskim could do, lacking the actual olives 
to compare them to.  That being the case, the actual fact doesn't 
constitute a historical argument; it constitutes a reality-based argument.

If there were a plague that killed most of the chickens, and 100 years 
from now, a rav paskened that a particular bird was a chicken, simply 
due to the fact that he didn't know otherwise, that wouldn't make it a 
chicken.  And producing a real chicken would override that psak.

I think this is a philosophical issue that has far wider implications. 
I see it as consonant with your argument that the Mabul could have been 
an event that never actually happened in the physical world. 
Ironically, in one case, your philosophy results in what seems to be a 
much more traditional view (vis kazayit), but in another, it results in 
what seems to be a much more non-traditional view (vis the Mabul).  In 
both cases, though, it looks like an issue of raising process above 
reality.  I can understand the argument, but I don't think it is compelling.

Lisa