[Avodah] Timtum Halev

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 12:05:45PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: ... "Ohr Yisrael" #16 by R'Avraham Rubin ... general conclusion was
: that eating something that would be classified as "forbidden foods,"
: if you know it is such, will cause timtum halev (spiritual character
: defects) even if you are permitted to eat it in your case (e.g., pikuach
: nefesh - life-threatening situation). However, if you eat a "factually
: forbidden food" based on a mistaken halachic decision by an authorized
: halachic source, no such damage will occur.

I invite RMRabi to comment on that last sentence. He and I debated for
most of a year whether the Maharal would agree that someone who follows
a mistaken pesaq is different in kind than someone who makes the mistake
themselves.


I presume that if eating because of "a mistaken halachic decision by an
authorized halachic source" does not cause timtum heleiv, R Avraham Rubin
would say that all the more so, eating food that as a matter of unknown
fact happens to be kosher but we correctly rule may be eaten because of
rov, chazaqah, bitul or whatever would not damage. I would think RAR is
coming down on the side of saying that it's the sin, not the substance,
which causes the spiritual damage.

To my mind -- a hashkafically simpler position, since there is Justice
to life being worse due to a sin than due to something premitted.


In which case, RAR's opening ruling, that the person starting to death
who eats the only available edible which happens to be non-kosher,
would seem to be based on ruling that saving one's life overrides
the prohibition (making it petura), not that the eating is actually
permissible (hutra). For if it were hutra, how would the case differ
from correctly following received pesaq?

And if it is because of peturah, that the prohibition is being broken,
but the violation is permissible for the sake of a greater value, then
I can understand how its Just even if we were to say the cause is the
substance. The sin is happening, and we know it's happening; we just
chose the lesser sin. Lemah hadavar domeh: chemo is poison. For the sake
of the greater danger, cancer, a person may take chemo. But the poison
still does its effect.  The person did what was medically recommended,
and the recommendation was made knowing there was a self-destructive
element to the act.

: Interesting that this IIUC would yield the result that one could be
: halachically required to eat the "forbidden food" (rather than commit
: suicide by starving to death), yet still develop character defects
: because of it. Seems non-halachic man to me....

Halachic man wouldn't ask the question of timtum haleiv to begin with. It
is not a halachic category.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder]
micha at aishdas.org        isn't complete with being careful in the laws
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