[Avodah] Heseibah, Halachah and Science

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Micha Berger cited Rav Asher Weiss at
https://en.tvunah.org/2019/04/17/pesach-hesebah

> ... This principal idea is the key to understanding the
> general question of Torah and Science.
>
> ... As an aside, even from the scientific side of things, we
> only accept proof after experimenting and proving, ie. the
> scientific process. To the best of my knowledge no study or
> survey was ever done to prove that leaning on the right is just
> as safe as leaning on the left. While we don't see a reason for
> there to be a difference, this would be our unproven theory ...

This has always been my understanding of these things.

Similarly, I am not aware of any rigorous double-blind study on whether
pregnant women miscarry after stepping on discarded fingernails.

I am also unaware of any research into the many situations which Chazal say
are harmful to one's memory.

R' Josh Backon did post some research here (for example, at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol08/v08n035.shtml#11 and
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol16/v16n151.shtml#09) to show that it is
dangerous to eat fish with meat. But even there, I am not aware that there
were any actual tests done to *prove* his conclusions.

My personal interest has been on the other side of this coin: Why don't
these "dangers" count a forbidden superstitions?

We people nowadays do not see any connection between these causes and their
supposed effects. So what did Chazal see, and how did they come to these
conclusions? How often did a woman miscarry, and the circumstances led them
to believe that the miscarriage was because she stepped on some
fingernails? That boggles my mind. To my way of thinking, the time delay is
so slow that any rational person would have to admit that the fingernails
were only one of several possible causes.

This leads me to two possible conclusions: (1) Perhaps Chazal never saw a
case where a woman did step on fingernails, and successfully delivered her
baby. If every single test case resulted in miscarriage, then their
conclusions are reasonable. But how can they have been so carefully
observant of every single case? (2) The other possibility is that the
belief in this danger is not the result of anything they observed, but was
Received Revelation. This seems much more likely to me, because it is a
simple entryway into halacha. Without a Revelation from Shamayim, wouldn't
a belief in these dangers be a forbidden superstition?

Akiva Miller
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