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From
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/7887hz9" eudora="autourl">
http://tinyurl.com/7887hz9</a> This article is written by
<font size=3><i>Rabbi David Bar-Hayim is the head of Machon Shilo, a
centre of Jewish learning in Jerusalem dedicated to the exposition and
dissemination of Torat Eretz Yisrael. The teachings of Rabbi Bar-Hayim
may be found at
<a href="http://www.machonshilo.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.machonshilo.org</a></i> <br><br>
Rashi almost certainly never saw an olive. The same goes for other
medieval authorities in Ashk’naz (Germany-Northern France). This
little-known but indisputable fact should matter to you. It has
everything to do with the following question: Is Halakhic Judaism
rational and rooted in reality, or is it a hypothetical construct
unconducive to engaging the real world?<br><br>
It is a simple matter to ascertain, or describe to another, the volume of
an average olive, a ‘k’zayit’…provided you have olives. But what if you
have never seen an olive? How would you understand the concept? How would
you describe it to someone unfamiliar with olives?<br><br>
Medieval Ashk’nazim were unfamiliar with olives, a fact confirmed by R.
Eliezer b. Yoel’s (d. circa 1225) discussion of the minimal amount
required for a b’rakha aharona: “Wherever a k’zayith is required, one
needs a sizeable amount of food, because we are unfamiliar with the size
of an olive…” (Ra’avya, B’rakhoth 107).<br><br>
Some Ashk’nazi authorities concluded that an olive was half the volume of
an egg, while others demonstrated, based on Talmudic sources, that it
must be less than one third of an egg. How much less they could not say.
The truth, of course, is different, as was clearly perceived by one 14th
century authority who actually made it to Eretz Yisrael. Responding to
the proposition that a person could swallow three k’zaytim at once (which
is quite impossible if one assumes a k’zayit to be half of an egg in
volume) he wrote: “As for me, the matter is plain, for I saw olives in
Eretz Yisrael and Yerushalayim, and even six were not equal to an egg.”
S’pharadi authorities, on the other hand, had no such difficulties. One
wrote that an olive is “much less” than a quarter of an egg (Rashba),
while another mentions in passing that a dried fig is equal to “several
olives” (Rittba). The last three statements, made by sages who saw
olives, are entirely accurate.<br><br>
See the above URL for the rest of this article. YL</font></body>
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