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Masechet Chullin Daf 11
Dec. 8th, 2018 07:43 pmDaf 11
Yesterday I talked about the idea of Chazaka, presumed status. Something has a presumed status of some sort, and then there is a doubt about whether or not an event happened that could have changed the status. There's no way to be sure one way or the other what happened. In this case, we rule that the presumed status remains in place. Again, this only applies when talking about a formal legalistic status, when it implicates sakana we don't go by the chazaka, we make an actual real world judgement about the probability. And there are many other legal complications, too.
Today the Gemara talks about Rova, the principle of going by the majority. This is for cases where there is no Chazaka. We have a piece of unlabeled meat that might or might not be kosher. If it's in a place where there are 9 kosher meat providers and one kosher meat provider, we go by the majority and rule that it's kosher, because the majority of the time, that will prove out to be the case. If the opposite were true, we would rule it unkosher based on the majority. The point is that there is no chazaka, a random piece of meat is either kosher or unkosher, there is no presumed status we can apply to it to make a ruling, so in this case we go by the majority, the most likely scenario. It seems like you can even use this principle of Rova in some cases when you have the ability to do some detective work and figure out the actual status, but when that is and when that isn't seems complicated and not necessarily like something that you can just apply axiomatically.
The Gemara spends most of the daf discussing various Torah cases that demonstrate this principle. Most of them involve particular sacrifices where a part of the animal must be offered whole, which would prevent us from opening up the animal to check for a treifa. Since the treifa is rare and in the majority of cases the animal won't be a treifa, the Torah is saying, you can just assume that the animal is not a treifa in order to offer the sacrifice.
But the most fascinating case to me is the case of the son who strikes his father, which is a capital crime according to the Torah. The Gemara says "Wait a minute, we can never be sure of a child's paternity, so clearly we are using the principle of Rova to assume that if a boy was raised by a man and a woman, they are the child's parents." And even if you imagine a scenario where a man and a woman are secluded (for example in prison) together for nine months and the man is the only possible father to the child, we still use Rova because we say it's always possible that something immoral happened. (Rashi says maybe the jailer slept with the woman, for example).
I was really hoping the Gemara would just object and say "Wait a minute, this whole premise of killing a son is barbaric, surely we don't really execute him for this?" But nope.
But what really fascinates me about this case is whether it would still be a case of Rova today. We have pretty damn reliable paternity tests available now. So if we had a Jewish theocratic legal system and could execute a son for striking his father, would we be able to rely on Rova or would we have to administer a paternity test? I can see the arguments both ways. But I should hope it would be the latter.
Yesterday I talked about the idea of Chazaka, presumed status. Something has a presumed status of some sort, and then there is a doubt about whether or not an event happened that could have changed the status. There's no way to be sure one way or the other what happened. In this case, we rule that the presumed status remains in place. Again, this only applies when talking about a formal legalistic status, when it implicates sakana we don't go by the chazaka, we make an actual real world judgement about the probability. And there are many other legal complications, too.
Today the Gemara talks about Rova, the principle of going by the majority. This is for cases where there is no Chazaka. We have a piece of unlabeled meat that might or might not be kosher. If it's in a place where there are 9 kosher meat providers and one kosher meat provider, we go by the majority and rule that it's kosher, because the majority of the time, that will prove out to be the case. If the opposite were true, we would rule it unkosher based on the majority. The point is that there is no chazaka, a random piece of meat is either kosher or unkosher, there is no presumed status we can apply to it to make a ruling, so in this case we go by the majority, the most likely scenario. It seems like you can even use this principle of Rova in some cases when you have the ability to do some detective work and figure out the actual status, but when that is and when that isn't seems complicated and not necessarily like something that you can just apply axiomatically.
The Gemara spends most of the daf discussing various Torah cases that demonstrate this principle. Most of them involve particular sacrifices where a part of the animal must be offered whole, which would prevent us from opening up the animal to check for a treifa. Since the treifa is rare and in the majority of cases the animal won't be a treifa, the Torah is saying, you can just assume that the animal is not a treifa in order to offer the sacrifice.
But the most fascinating case to me is the case of the son who strikes his father, which is a capital crime according to the Torah. The Gemara says "Wait a minute, we can never be sure of a child's paternity, so clearly we are using the principle of Rova to assume that if a boy was raised by a man and a woman, they are the child's parents." And even if you imagine a scenario where a man and a woman are secluded (for example in prison) together for nine months and the man is the only possible father to the child, we still use Rova because we say it's always possible that something immoral happened. (Rashi says maybe the jailer slept with the woman, for example).
I was really hoping the Gemara would just object and say "Wait a minute, this whole premise of killing a son is barbaric, surely we don't really execute him for this?" But nope.
But what really fascinates me about this case is whether it would still be a case of Rova today. We have pretty damn reliable paternity tests available now. So if we had a Jewish theocratic legal system and could execute a son for striking his father, would we be able to rely on Rova or would we have to administer a paternity test? I can see the arguments both ways. But I should hope it would be the latter.