[Avodah] Rav Melamed on Metal Pots

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Wed, Oct 05, 2016 at 11:37:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: R' Micha Berger and I keep writing in this thread, but there seems to be a
: communications problem...

We therefore took the conversation off-list for a bit. Judging from RAM's
response to my last email, I think I figured out how to formulate what
I am trying to say in a way that is comprehensible. So, I would like to
share it here.

Kefeilah alone is an insufficient criterion to determine whether or
not a keli has a ta'am. There is also shishim. Machloqes rishonim,
about what the rule of kefeilah means:

1- BY, based on the Ramban: There is no bitul beshishim if the kefeilah
can taste it. So, you need both ratio and taste.

2- Rashi: Bitul beshishim is only if the kefeilah can taste it or if
there are none available. You need ratio, confirm with taste when you can.

3- Ri, Rambam: There is bitul even if the proportion is greater than 1:60
if the kefeilah cannot taste it. So you need either ratio or taste. (The
AhS explains that what a chef might taste of a 1:60 minority is so
weakened, it's not real ta'am.)

(The above is from earlier in this self-same thread -- but all the way
back on Sep 12th. http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol34/v34n112.shtml#11 )

So the idea of kefeilah, lekhol hadei'os, is not that ta'am means
biological taste. Every shitah has a role for bitul beshishim. And since
biological taste is part of psychological ta'am, this combination of
ratio and experiment fits psychology more than biology.

[RAM, offlist,] wrote something about middos vs halakhah. FWIW, you're
talking to someone who believes that the iqar of halakhah is to be a
set of mussar exercises. To quote R' Shimon:

    Yisbarakh HaBorei, Veyis'alah haYotzeir [note the rashei teivos]
    who created us in His "Image" and in the likeness of His "Structure"
    vechayei olam nata besocheinu
    so that our greatest desire would be to benefit others
    individuals and the community
    now and in the future
    in the likeness of the Borei, kaveyachol

"Vechayei olam nata besocheinu" -- i.e. gave us the Torah (c.f. Birkhas
haTorah), "so that our greatest desire would be to benefi others" --
mussar, no?

It requires serious mysticism to believe the mitzvos work through a
means other than their impact on experience. And even within mysticism,
according to the Nefesh haChaim (this is a big part of cheileq 1),
their impact in higher olamos is via the impact on experience and the
soul of the person doing them. After all, it's only the human soul that
is betzelem E-lokim and combines kochos from all the olamos; it's the
only conduit from actions in this world to higher ones.

And given that central role of experience, then we can continue using
Aristo's common-sensical Natural Philosophy even thought our brains know
that experiments and science describe objective reality better. Because
even practiced baseball players in the field run to get under the ball,
and then slowly correct for the parabolic trajectory the ball actually
follows.

And if most people will talk themselves into tasting something that
doesn't really have a taste, then it has ta'am. As long as the psyche
connects the pot to meat, or halakhah believes that someone with the
right sensitivities would.


GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht