[Avodah] kavua/Rov

Tue Mar 21 08:12:46 PDT 2017

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 10:54:42PM +1100, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
: R Micha suggests that my analysis is flawed because the Halachos of Rov
: differ WRT TaAroves
: and Kol DeParish, and even WRT Parish, between Ruba Deleisa KaMan and Ruba
: DeLeisa KaMan.

: R Micha, please give some examples to illustrate what you mean.

First, a ruba deleisa leqaman is not a ta'aroves, so examples shouldn't
be necessary to disprove your formulation.

See Zevachim 73a, which asks why a beraisa invokes kol deparish rather
than having each animal batel to the herd. A berya isn't batel, but is
still parish. Rishonim ad loc discuss the nafqa mina.

There is no parallel -- or need for a parallel -- for mi'ut hamtzui or
qasheh levareir for a ruba de'iusa leqaman. Every mi'ut is matzui, because
it's isa leqaman.

...
: Honestly, R Micha - these are such complicated confusing guidelines

R Shimon Shkop is quite apologetic at the opening of Shaarei Yosher,
because there is no way to make the kelalei birur simple. To quote
my translation (NOT from the hashkafic part of the haqdamah, found in
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ShaareiYosher.pdf>):
    I know that this book of mine will not be acceptable to all, because
    many who study aren't acclimated to contemplate in an in-depth manner,
    in the deep way that surrounds and goes through the many topics spoken
    of in this book of mine. For there are many approaches to the Torah
    and each person finds meaning according to what he is used to. ALSO,
    IN THAT MOST OF THE TOPICS EXPLAINED IN IT ARE TOPICS THAT DEMAND
    DEPTH AND CONTEMPLATION, AND THEY WILL NOT GRASP THE HEART THAT
    UNDERSTANDS ONLY IN A MERE GLIMPSE. Not all people want to face the
    deficiency in himself [he may find] due to the depth of the concept
    and the deficiency of the conceiver.

I would therefore assert that any simple explanation can be ruled out as
oversimplified to the point of error.

But I think R' Aqiva Eiger's (shu"t #146) / R Gedalia Nadel's (Betoraso
shel R' Gedaliah pg 52
<http://www.zootorah.com/controversy/Hebrewbooks_org_37016.pdf#page=31>)
shitah is not as bad as all that:

Qavua is where we had a known entity with a known din, and now we don't
know that din. Parish is where we encounter an unknown entity. Safeiq
in the din -- qavua; safeiq in the metzi'us -- parish.

RGN (pg 53 fn 3) gave the same ta'am hamitzvah for this as I used to
explain RAE: The role of mitzvos is to refine demuso hamusaris. Therefore,
what is halaachically significant is human perception, and not the
thing-in-itself. This is why rov is a factor in resolving a question
of metzi'us.

However, once the din already exists and the safeiq is in what is was,
the case of 9 chaniyos, one has a different perception of the meat
because one knows there is a real issur hanging about.

Until that footnote, RGN's talk about qavua revolves around the caution
one would have / should have around something that has a real issur. Which
sounds like R/Nobel Laureate/Prof Uri ("Robert") Aumann's (RAU) "Moral
Hazard Theory". But I see now he is really going in a different direction.

RRA defined the term Moral Hazard to RYGB
<http://rygb.blogspot.in/2011/07/kavua-redux-ii-respnse-from-prof-aumann.html>
as "We say that a situation with an uncertain outcome is fraught with
"moral hazard" if an *interested* party -- one that stands to gain
or lose from the outcome -- can influence it." more reason to play
it safe.

And then, as RYGB summarized in an earlier post:
    even if you are perfectly willing to pay double the premiums,
    an insurer will not issue you a second identical policy on your
    car. This is because you now have an incentive to disregard your
    normal parameters of morality and arrange to have your car stolen --
    after all, you will make a tidy profit on the theft. You might not
    even make such arrangements -- you are, of course, a /very/ moral
    person -- but you may be more negligent about removing your keys
    from the ignition and locking the door. It might not even be a
    conscious reaction.

    Kol d'parish eliminates any "moral hazard." I was not active in
    generating the safek, and neither my conscious nor subconscious issues
    bear on the scenario.

    In a case of kavua, however, I was active in creating the safek. I
    went into the store, I threw the rock, etc. Therefore, my issues bear
    on the scenario. For example, I might have a subconscious drive to
    eat treif which impels me to a non-kosher store - of which I myself
    am not conscious.

RAU's explanation works well for the case I brought from the AhS,
the difference between whether a man goes to the woman, in which case
we assume the man is from rov of the city; or if she goes to him, in
which case qol deparish -- even a mi'ut of pesulim could pasl her to
marry a kohein.

But I don't think it works in general. RYGB ad loc mentions Zevachim 73b,
top of the amud, where chasing animal away would qualify as kol deparish,
even though the person doing the chasing is an interested party.

Someone in RYGB's comment chain asked a question, which he addresses in
a third post:
    The gemara (9b) discusses a scenario where nine piles of matza and
    one pile of chametz are lying around before Pesach. A mouse comes and
    takes a piece from one of the piles and enters a house. However, we do
    not know if it took chametz or matza and thus are in doubt whether the
    house must be checked once again for chametz. The gemara distinguishes
    between a case where the mouse is seen taking a piece directly from
    one of the piles ["kavu'a"] and an instance where the piece snatched
    by the mouse was first isolated from the piles ["parish"]. These two
    cases are said to be analogous, respectively, to two cases considered
    in Ketubot (15a): "If there are nine stores which sell kosher meat
    and one which sells non-kosher meat and someone took [meat] from
    one of them but he doesn't know from which one he took, the meat
    is forbidden. But if [a piece of meat] is found [not in a store],
    follow the majority." Thus if the majority of stores from which the
    meat might have originated are kosher, the meat is permitted.

RYGB suggests answers. In Zevachim he says there may be one in Tosafos,
in antoher he points to "neini'ach" in the Rambam (Chameitz uMatza 2:10)
-- the acting interested party is the one who put the pile where mice
could get at it.

But I find it really dachuq to say we're being machmir to avoid people from
leaving chameitz laying around in case a mouse takes it ONLY IF HE IS
SEEN, because then it's qavua.

Wearer argument, but I am throwing it in anyway: I also find it
unrealistic for this kind of cheshash-based pesaq to be behind a din
deOraisa, like qavua, rather than deRabbanan. Not a strong argument,
just part of why I don't feel at home with RAU's shitah.

(Okay, to be honest, we know the real reason why: I already had a pet
theory before I learned his well enough to realize it differed. But the
notion of saying a deOraisa exists because of a cheshash fits my bias.)

Last, what about qol qavua where the issur is derabbanan, and kemechtza
al mechtza is more meiqil than rov?

Last, there is R/Prof Moshe Koppel's theory. in which the distinction
See <http://etzion.org.il/en/principle-kavua>, or better -- his article
in the first edition of Higayon (put out by Bar Ilan, edited by RMK)
which I think was the same as or at least very similar to
<http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel/rov-25.5.pdf>:

    When do we assign a status to an item as an individual and when do we
    assign a status to an item as part of a set? If prior to the raising
    of the issue of status, the item in question is an undistinguished
    element of some set (kavu'a), then the item is assigned the status of
    the set. If, however, the item is in some way distinct from the set
    (parish), it is assigned its own status.

    Consider the case of the stores mentioned above, of which nine out
    of ten sell kosher meat (Ketubot 15a). The critical moment for our
    purposes is the moment immediately preceding the initial encounter
    with the piece of meat in question. If this initial encounter occurs
    while the meat is in the store, the meat is regarded simply as
    an undistinguished member of a mixed set and its status is thus
    indeterminate (mechtza al mechtza). If the initial encounter
    occurs while the meat is on the street and is thus not associated
    with one of the elements of the set of stores, it must be assigned
    its own status. Unlike a mixed set of pieces of meat, an individual
    piece of meat is either kosher or non-kosher; its status is not
    indeterminate, but rather unknown. In such a case, we must choose
    between the two possibilities -- kosher or non-kosher -- and we use
    the majority principle in order to do so.

But he doesn't give the taam hamitzvah for it that RGN does. Instead he
explains it in terms of sample spaces -- when do we count the stores to
determine rov stores, and when do we count the meat to determine rov
meat?

    ... In fact, the difference between the way a kavu'a case is handled
    and the way a parish case is handled can be neatly expressed in
    terms of sample spaces. In the case of parish, some natural sample
    space is chosen, e.g., the set of stores. (What makes a particular
    sample space "natural" is an interesting question which I won't
    attempt to answer here.) In the case of kavu'a, the chosen sample
    space consists of the SINGLE element consisting of the entire set,
    which is neither kosher nor non-kosher.

But aside from sactificing RGN's tie to the big picture, I find
it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that the parish, the
differentiated member of the sample space, is the one that uses the
natural sample space, and the one that is qavua within that space is not.

(And again, my natural bias for my pet theory probably has my mind pretty
closed regardless of attempts to be fair.)

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l