[Avodah] Should Shiurim be Corrected to Archeological Data

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 09:35:10PM +0100, Arie Folger wrote:
: On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 7:57 PM Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
...
:> If shiurim do depend on today's arms and olives, they wouldn't need to
:> remain in the ratios they were in when Chazal stated how they related
:> in their forearms, finger-widths and olives.

...
: This insistence that the shiurim are meant to match realia leaves me with
: some questions. First of all, if we take the fingers and fists literally,
: the eggs become unrealistically large...

Why? If they have to match realia, then eggs become egg sized. And a
zeres would be the span of your fingers, whether or not that's half the
length of your forearm. And if it's a communal project -- measuring se'ah
for a miqvah or the AhS's case of eiruvin -- then the normal finger span
in your place-and-time, normal forearm, etc...

As I said in the post you're replying to, the ratios between shiurim
wouldn't necessary remain as they were for chazal.) I feel we are talking
across each other.

If one takes a hybrid approach, different than that you described
besheim RKZ, that only the ammah etc... which are based on anatomy are
personal (and therefore communal measures be based on normal range in
the population). And perhaps kezayis, kebeitza, etc... were intended
to be objective.

After all, the AhS doesn't actually say that middos change with the times.
He says that middos are based on the individual, that 4 amos doesn't
mean 4 of some standard measure, but 4 of your own ammah. And then that
because the eiruv is for many people, they need a consensus ammah. And
that *implies* that with new population demographics, the consensus will
change.

Meanwhile, he also says a number of times that 4 amos are 3 arshin,
which is 6 regel which is one sachen. And in CM 218:1 he also says that
a tefach is 2 vieshok. (Translating using
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_Russian_units_of_measurement
that comes to a 21" ammah.) Ammah as a fixed measure.

So, does he mean that 21" was a normal length for an East European
Jewish forearm? Or do I entirely not understand AhS OC 363:32-35?
Explanation from when it was fresh in my mind at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol33/v33n006.shtml#01
I had open questions then too.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

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