[Avodah] elu v-elu

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 04/23/2015 08:07 AM, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
>
>>> >>Question: Can you offer someone food that you think is kosher but he
>>> >>doesn't accept the kashrut
>>> >>Answer:
>>> >>Monism - no problem as you are right and he is wrong
>>> >>Pluralism - assur since his opinion is acceptable
>> >It depends whether his concern is legitimate.  If there is a legitimate
>> >opinion or minhag that forbids or refrains from whatever it is, or if he
>> >has a legitimate private chumra, then there is no question that it is assur
>> >to be machshil him.
> No  question is your  opinion a true  monist
> Would argue that there are no other  legitimate opinions hence  the  other
> is wrong and you are not machshil him

Even if there is only one truth, you don't necessarily know for sure what
it is.  You make your best guess, but someone else makes his, and for all
you know he may have hit on the truth, even if only by accident, while you,
with all your careful analysis of the evidence, may have been led astray.

Let's take medicine, where there really is only one truth, but often we
don't know for sure what it is.  Does gluten in the diet negatively affect
the health of most normal people?  There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence
for that proposition, but it can't be ruled out.  Maybe in 20 years we will
observe that those who have followed the gluten-free fad really are healthier,
and someone will discover how it is that gluten harms a person.  Or maybe
it will be established that it's exactly the mishguas that it appears to be.
But until then we are just guessing, and if you hold that it's a mishugas
but someone else is worried about it, you have to consider the possibility
that he may be right, and by tricking him into eating gluten you may actually
be harming him.

-- 
Zev Sero               I have a right to stand on my own defence, if you
zev at sero.name          intend to commit felony...if a robber meets me in
                        the street and commands me to surrender my purse,
                        I have a right to kill him without asking questions
                                               -- John Adams