[Avodah] Should Shiurim be Corrected to Archeological Data

Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin director at biblicalnaturalhistory.org
Wed Feb 20 13:12:20 PST 2019


On Wed, 20 Feb 2019, 22:54 Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org wrote:
> We've discussed this in the past. R Natan Slifkin always chimed in
> with a firm "yes" -- such as in his "kezayis chart" which is a life-sized
> picture of an olive.

It's absolutely not true that my answer is a firm "yes"!

My answer is actually usually "no!" I think that revising halachic
practice in light of scientific knowledge is usually wrong.

The difference in the case of kezayis is that there was never a canonized
halacha that a kezayis is the size of seven olives. Plenty of Rishonim
held that it was the size of a regular olive, and there was always such
a view throughout the generations.



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