[Avodah] kezayit

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

There recently appeared a sefer "Keren Zavit" by Nadav Shenrav on parshat
hashavua that has a very nice combination of science and Torah.

On parshat Tzav he brings a question on the shitah of the Nodah BeYuhuda
that eggs doubled in size.

The Noda Beyehuda claims that there is a contradiction between two
sugyot that find measurements based on either the size of the egg or from
length (or volume) measurements.
To answer the contradiction the Nodah Beyehuda assumes that our eggs are
half the size of those in the days of chazal. (Actually modern eggs are
larger than those in his day)

The basic point is that in order to translate the measurements of chazal to
modern measurements we need a fixed point, ie some measurement that has not
changed over the generations. If everything can change we have only
relative measurements and not absolute measurements.
The Nodah BeYehuda assumes that the width of the thumb is constant.

Question: Rambam (maaseh hakorbanot 13:14) states the kemitzah which
cinsists of 3 fingers closed over the palm contains 2 kezatim. However 2
kezaytim of 50cc (ie 100cc) is impossible to enclose within 3 fingers. He
brings that he saw this question in a series "Bet Aharon VeYisrael"
and they answered "nishtanu hateva" i.e. their hands were bigger and could
hold 100c of flour within 3 fingers. (In general the author is not
impressed with the answer of "nishtane hateva" but he assumes it for this
article).

However, this leads to an internal contradiction, ie Noda Beyehuda assumes
that the size of the thumb has not changed but is required to assume that
the size of the hand was much larger in the days of chazal  ie how is it
possible that their hands were MUCH larger but the width of the thumb
remained constant.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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