[Avodah] Heseibah, Halachah and Science

[Joseph Kaplan]

RAM gives two thoughtful possible analyses of how Chazal came to the conclusion that stepping on fingernails led to miscarriages. Let me add a third (perhaps not as thoughtful).

That conclusion was a common thought of the people of Chazal’s time. Like, in generations past, when people would say if a pregnant woman was carrying high it was a boy and if low it was a girl (or vice versa; o forget).  No one that i know of ever scientifically tested the “theory” and now, of course, there are scientific ways to determine sex which have been tested and work. ISTM that not everything that Chazal said has to be, or should be, given the same weight. 

Joseph

Joseph

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