[Avodah] standard measures?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 03:21:29PM +0200, Danny Schoemann via Avodah wrote:
> > I don't know what he would do with a kezayis. Would he follow R Chaim
> > Volozhiner, because the nearest thing to a subjective olive is using
> > the more available olive in NCyour own region and time?
> 
> I'm pretty sure it's a Mishna - to use a medium sized olive, each chochom
> using what he has available.

What he has available, or that a kezayis was an average one of their olives,
which hadn't been bred with olives from other countries and was roughly
the same as one Moshe Rabbeinu may have eaten.

Or more simply -- are they telling you to find a median or mode sized
olive of your own region and time, or that it was a valid way to measure
a kezayis because of the particulars of their region and time?

Given that they name they egori breed of olive (Keilim 17:8), I'm leaning
toward the latter.


> Also see the the Rambam at the end of Keilim ch. 17 (last sentence) where
> he writes:
> Ein medakdekim b'chol hashiurim ho'eilu shekoolom hen midivrei sofrim.
> (When measuring strange shaped earthenware ovens we don't measure very
> accurately is it's Rabbinic impurity.)
> 
> Obviously not applicable across the board.

Shiurim in mitzvos deOraisa are generally halakhah leMoshe miSinai.

In particular, the idea of defining eating and thus what is food by the
kezayis is not HlMmS, it's a derashah on "erez zayis shemen", as taught
by R Yosi beR' Chanina, "eretz shekol shi'ureha kezeisim" (Berakhos 41b).

So, agreed about "not applicable across the board."

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l