Avodah Mailing List

Volume 19: Number 11

Mon, 25 Sep 2006

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Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: MPoppers@kayescholer.com
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 08:28:59 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] How many kolot?




In Areivim Digest V2#50, RZS asked:
> what is actually done today by Yekkers, Oberlanders, Libyans, Syrians,
Temanim, etc? <
I can't speak to what's done by people who came from Yek :-), but in
KAJ/"Breuer's" (minhag Frankfurt), sixty of the hundred were blown after
the last b'rachah of chazoras Mussaf (thirty after the "Ain Kailokainu...es
Amo vaShalom" section of davening, thirty after the Qaddish Yasom which
followed "Alainu"), while ten were blown during the chazarah (four after
the Malchuyos section and three each after Zichronos and Shof'ros).

Best wishes for a k'sivah vachasimah tovah from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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Message: 2
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:02:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Kashering Corningware


Here's some info on the metzi'us of these substances.

I'm not. Here's the description of corelle, from corelle.com:
> Corelle glass dinnerware is made through a hub lamination process that
> thermally bonds three layers of glass: core glass in the middle, with top
> and bottom layers of very clear skin or glaze glass. The process creates
> a lightweight, durable, multi-layered product.  In addition, the unique
> enamels used during the decorating process actually become part of the glass,
> so the patterns last as long as the plate.

So, corelle should be like pyrex, it's a glass containing non-silicates.

Corningware is a weird substance bifnei azmah. As already mentioned
corningware falls, it explodes. The surface tension, when broken, pushes the
peices. I just went to corningware.com to get an explanation, but it seems the
stuff is obsolete:
> The original CorningWare(R) bakeware which was first introduced in 1958,
> was made of a glass-ceramic material that could be used on the stove, in
> the oven and under the broiler. After World Kitchen acquired the brand in
> the late 1990's, CorningWare products were switched to ceramic stoneware
> production.

I'm obviously asking about the pre-ceramic stuff.

-mi
http://www.aishdas.org/asp







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Message: 3
From: "Ashkanazy, Zev" <ZQAshkanazy@aaachicago.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:59:49 -0400
Subject:
[Avodah] Ona'as D'varim


R' Zevi Ashkenazi asked:
> Could being an anonymous blogger or making an anonymous comment on a 
> blog fall into the category of Ona'as D'varim?	

I think I chose the wrong wording. I think the question should be if
being anonymous would fall into the category of Gneivas Da'as.

KVT

Zevi



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Message: 4
From: "Jonathan Baker" <jjbaker@panix.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:49:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
[Avodah] How Many Kolot



Zev's and my mutual friend emailed me about the "how many kolot" question,
which led to a lot of interesting learning this morning.

The results are summarized in my blog, with sources.

In short, "old Ashkenazi minhag" isn't just 60, it can also be 40, 42 or
70.  100 only became "almost universal" in the 20th century, but Breuers
still does 70.

  Jonathan Baker     |  Ksivechsimetoiveh!
  jjbaker@panix.com  |  (It's a contraction, like Shkoiech, or Brshmo)
 Blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com   Web page http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker/




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Message: 5
From: "Chana Luntz" <chana@kolsassoon.org.uk>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:22:04 +0100
Subject:
[Avodah] FW: [Areivim] Are You Partially Responsible for the



Forwarded to Avodah for the usual reasons
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chana Luntz [mailto:chana@kolsassoon.org.uk] 
> Sent: 21 September 2006 19:30
> To: 'areivim@lists.aishdas.org'
> Cc: 'moshe.feldman@gmail.com'; 'llevine@stevens.edu'
> Subject: Re: [Areivim] Are You Partially Responsible for the Shevach
> 
> 
> 
> RMF write: 
> > <snip>
> > > Going to a movie and eating the popcorn: One person may ask an
> > > individual behind a counter what oil and popcorn is being 
> > used. This
> > > person, upon seeing a reliable Hechsher will then proceed
> > to buy the
> > > popcorn. Never mind the fact that the day before, they may
> > have used
> > > Treif oil! Once one person sees another eating it, suddenly, the
> > > popcorn is under the "EEI."
> > 
> > This is not relevant to your original example.  A non-Jewish
> > movie theater serving popcorn does not have a chezkas 
> > kashrus.  
> 
> I agree that this case is not one where chezkas kashrus comes 
> into play.  But if the person in question is indeed able to 
> establish that today all the ingredients being used for the 
> popcorn are kosher (without relying on the say so of the 
> popcorn seller, unless indirectly by derivation) - why does 
> not the principle of noten tam lifgam for anything older than 
> a day come into play?  Ie why is the fact that he may indeed 
> have used treif oil the day before not irrelevant (at least 
> m'ikkar hadin)? (I am not saying I would buy it either, but I 
> am not at all convinced that I have any basis for criticising 
> anybody who might not keep to my particular chumra of popping 
> corn at home).  The fish in the restaurant case seems to me 
> to be more problematic for bishel akum reasons (unless you 
> rely on the idea that as you can eat sushi, ie raw fish, 
> bishul akum does not apply to fish).  But I wouldn't have 
> thought that popcorn could be classified as roi l'achilas melech.
> 
> > 
> > Kol tuv,
> > Moshe
> 
> Regards
> 
> Chana
> 




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Message: 6
From: Goldmeier <goldmeier@012.net.il>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:59:10 +0200
Subject:
[Avodah] selichot at Neila


What is the best practice in relation to saying the selichot in Ne'ila 
on Yom Kippur? Many shuls attempt to get to Birkat Kohanim in time for 
nightfall. My shul skips the selichot and then goes back to them. Is 
there a source for saying the nusach hatefilla out of order like that? 
Is there a better method? If they have been skipped and night has 
already fallen, is there a reason to go back and say them?

Chasima Tova
Rafi

---------------------------------
Goldmeier
http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com
http://torahthoughts.blogspot.com







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Message: 7
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:34:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] place of shechina


On Wed, September 20, 2006 3:14 pm, R Eli Turkel wrote:
: The gemara at the beginning of succah (recent daf yomi) states that the
: schechina never goes below 10 tefachim.
: Given that G-d is not material and is everywhere what does this mean?

It's funny, because just an hour later, someone asked me the following:
> I couldn't help but notice that ten tefachim is exactly the height of the
> "place of the brit." Is this one of those deeper and more omniconnected
> things, or just an interesting coincidence? I.e., am I the only one
> who's noticed this?

But as I answered him, I think it's about reshuyos and never considered
another explanation. 10 tefachim change in altitude (a platform, a hole,
mashiach atop a donkey, a platform that needs a maaqah) defines a new reshus.
IOW, I think the aggadita is saying that the Shechinah is always above the
reshus of the floor. Just as Moshe Rabbeinu and Eliyahu haNavi were only able
to reach one reshus shy of the usual location of the kisei hakavod.

Thinking about it further, the message *might* be as follows:

We may be able to interact the Divine, but our spheres are forever distinct.
We are within this world, we have a subjective here and now.

There is probably also a nara"n component to explaining this. The story in
Bekhoros 8b, where the Elders of Athens ask R' Yehoshua ben Chaninah to build
a castle in the air, comes to mind. The Gra (Peirush al Kamah Agados, found as
an appendix to "The Juggler and the King" by RAFeldman) explains it as being a
question about the interplay of the nefesh and body with the ru'ach and ego in
the service of HQBH. RYbC could rise above gashmius by saying a sheim Hashem,
but still, you can't build the castle without using olam hazeh and our olam
hazeh forces (the nefesh) to serve Him.

Which in turn does relate to the maqom haberis, and the ability to build a
binyan adei ad...

-mi
http://www.aishdas.org/asp




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Message: 8
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:59:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Chazal are Infallible


On Tue, September 19, 2006 4:58 pm, R Zev Sero wrote:
: Micha Berger wrote:
[RZS wrote:]
:>: Unfortunately, it doesn't explain the gemara, but the Rambam wasn't
:>:commenting on that, so he doesn't have to deal with it.
...
:> I do not know what you mean by "doesn't explain the gemara". Please
:> elaborate.
:> The gemara, like the mishnah, works with the assumption that since we can't
:> get perfect precision, we have a de'Oraisa telling us what to use.

: No, the gemara (on that mishna in Eruvin) isn't talking about what to
: do lemaaseh - it's talking about the yam shel shlomo, and it insists
: that the dimensions given in the Tanach are precise, without even a
: mashehu of approximation...

Aha! I thought we were talking about two things: a mishnah in Eiruvin and a
gemara in Sukkah. Now that I know you meant the gemara in Eiruvin, this is
something you raised on mail-jewish in Aug 2000, and here in Aug 2004.

In vol 13, RJSO quoted Tosafos haRosh, who makes the argument about the shiur
of pi rather than pi itself. I added that fit the recollection I had of how I
was taught the gemara. RZS objected to the plausibility of this reading, and
in <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol13/v13n076.shtml#11> RJSO gives a line by
line explanation of the gemara as he presumed the ThR understood it.

I didn't find RZS's reply to this explanation. If you would like to pick up
from that point rather than restart the debate from the beginning a third
time, I would appreciate it.

-mi
http://www.aishdas.org/asp




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Message: 9
From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:41:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] asher yatzar


On Wed, September 20, 2006 9:23 am, R David Riceman wrote:
: From: "Micha Berger" <micha@aishdas.org>
:> I think the point of the berakhah is the necessary complexity. Not that the
:> design is flawed, but that it supports so many things because it's complex.
:> With complexity ought to come fragility.

To revive a point lost by RDR's ellision: I cited my own opinion AFTER
presenting a different shitah found in the Ri bar Yaqar and the Avudraham.
This is therefore the less well thought-through of two possibilities.

: How are we do harmonize this with the doctrine of God's omnipotence? Doesn't
: the Ramban somewhere suggest that in the Messianic era God will give us
: sturdier bodies?

No problem with omnipotence, at least according to the Rambam: Obviously the
probability of failure of a system that includes both X and Y will be greater
than the probability of failure of a system that only includes X. Since the
Rambam holds that Omnipotence can't defy logic...

The Ramchal, however, holds that logic is a nivrah, and therefore Hashem isn't
bound by it. But in that case, we chucked my ability to reason an answer out
the window, and for that matter, the tools by which you reasoned your way to
the question.

The Ramban says that after techiyas hameisim (which he does NOT put at the
same time as yemos hamashaich) we will have stronger bodies. But it doesn't
change the fact that even if those bodies had an inappropriate opening or
blockage, they wouldn't work. It sounds like you're asking why HQBH made
disease possible altogether, and if He had too, why make a berakhah thanking
Him for it? (Which is not the angle by which I understood the question to
begin with.)

First, there is the kelalah of the nachash -- people are given illness as an
opportunity to turn to Him. No illness would mean that He doesn't want to hear
from us. (Not sure I'd want to run with that answer, but it's possible.)

Second, we speak of chalayim ra'im vene'emanim. Why do we praise them as
"ne'emanim"? Because they leave when their job is done, even if it would make
it look like an AZ cured the person. (R Aqiva, AZ 55a)

Choli has its role, whether for the above reason or something broader. The
Ikkarim diffrentiates between the current life and the one after techiyas
hameisim (he believes both are finite) in the differences in challenges each
kind of life would provide. In the 2nd life, all challenges are self-imposed,
overcoming our own limitations, not those of our bodies or the world around
us. To be capable of using that opportunity, we must have gotten beyond the
growth possible in this lifetime.

But I don't think that's what we're talking about here, because we're not
talking about illness. We're talking about how much more rare illness is than
in a system of lesser complexity that we would have designed. You might ask
why the guf needed to be complex; but once it did, the rarety of illness
demonstrates His Wisdom in that design.

(As I asked earlier on this thread: How much more complex is a human than MS
Word? How much more rarely does the system "go down"?)

-mi
http://www.aishdas.org/asp




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Message: 10
From: "Chana Luntz" <chana@kolsassoon.org.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:24:46 +0100
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] asher yatzar



RDR writes:

> On Fri, September 15, 2006 8:52 am, David Riceman wrote:
> : My son and I are studying siddur, and we're curious about
> :the bracha asher yatzar.  Isn't it praising God for a bug rather than
a 
> :feature? Surely making human beings resistant against slight changes
in 
> :form would be better design.
> 

Amd RMB responds:

> I think the point of the berakhah is the necessary 
> complexity. Not that the design is flawed, but that it 
> supports so many things because it's complex. With complexity 
> ought to come fragility.
> 
> The human body is a more complex design that the system I 
> work on for work. With that many parts, there will be many 
> points of failure. And yet, the system is down far more often 
> than a person is.
> 

Yes this is true, but: - the gemora in Yoma 75b states that the mon was
absorbed directly into the 248 limbs of the body and even elevated all
other food stuffs so they too resulted in no waste, meaning that no
waste was produced.  And the gemora explains, it was only after the Bnei
Yisroel complained that the halacha of needing a shovel was expounded,
ie they were punished by needing to relieve themselves - it being a
punishment that they would then have to walk up to three parsos to
relieve themselves. 

So, if relieving oneself is (or can be seen as) a form of punishment,
and it is possible to provide food that does not result in waste (I know
it contradicts the second law of thermodynamics - but I am not sure what
the Torah view is or should be on the second law of thermodynamics, with
its bleak view of things) why, to perhaps rephrase RDR (or his son's)
question, are we indeed making a bracha?  Even if the current design is
complex, would not having the situation in the midbar pre complaint as
standard be the desirable scenario?   

> -mi

Regards

Chana




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Message: 11
From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:25:32 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] Chazal are Infallible


Micha Berger wrote:
> In vol 13, RJSO quoted Tosafos haRosh, who makes the argument about
> the shiur of pi rather than pi itself. [...] If you would like to
> pick up from that point rather than restart the debate from the
> beginning a third time, I would appreciate it.



> [JSO]
>> Tosefos HaRosh (Eruvin 14a) ... 
>> (A) How do we have a licence to record Pi as 3, i.e. as an 
>> appoximation. The Talmud anwers that the licence is from Scripture 
>> (i.e. Solomon's pool where it is also recorded approximately). 

OK, so you're proceeding on the assumption that the authors of this
gemara knew the correct value of pi, or something close to it.  At
least, they knew that it was bigger than 3, and that the mishna was
intentionally rounding it.  So let's see how your reading works.


> [RZS]
>> between 9.5*pi and 30.5). The Tosefos Harosh could learn the 
>> mishna very easily that way. But how can he learn the gemara that way?
> 
> I had this question as well when I first learned the sugya. But since (A)
> is the shita not only of the Tosefos HaRosh but also the Raavad, Meiri,
> Tashbatz and to my understanding the Rambam, GR"A (see Alef Kesav 117),
> Aruch HaShulchan, Chazon Ish and MB, I would suggest the following:

Really?  All these people comment on the gemara, and all understand
the gemara to actually know the correct value, and to be asking how
the mishna got the right to round it?  Where, exactly, does the Rambam,
for instance, comment on this gemara at all, let alone give this
explanation?  

Now I haven't seen the Tosfos HaRosh inside, so I have to take your
word for it that this is indeed what he says, and isn't simply
something you're reading into him, just as you're reading it into
the gemara.  But now you're telling me that *all* of these meforshim
explain the gemara that way, but somehow this explanation eluded our
Tosfos, who is left with a question, as well as all the other
meforshim on the page who don't even seem to have a question in the
first place?  That seems rather a lot for me to take on faith.


> [The Ramchal writes in Derech Tevunos that the derech of the Talmud is
> to be brief and many steps are unstated, and we have to fill them in
> for ourselves. So please treat the following in the same manner].

Seems like a license to make up whatever we like, and put it in the
mouth of the gemara.


> MENA HANI MILI [that X]
> We need to fill in for ourselves what X is, the Gemora does not
> specifically state what it is.
> X is: how do we have a licence to record Pi as 3?

How about, "hani mili" means exactly what it means EVERY OTHER TIME
the gemara uses those very words?  It ALWAYS means how does the
mishna know WHAT IT JUST SAID, not some hypothetical argument that
the gemara silently assumes the mishna is making.  If the gemara
understands the mishna to be saying something different than what
the words mean, it explains that first (and gives a reason or a
source), and THEN asks how the mishna knows it.  The mishna says
that anything with a circumference of 3 tefachim has a diameter
of 1 tefach, NOT that we merely "see" it as having such a diameter;
the gemara asks how the mishna knows that.



> ("3", after all, is a fairly close approximation (5%) and a nice round
> number that makes the presentation easier as we do in engineering
> texts today)

I'm not sure what you mean by this, so I'm leaving it in without
comment.  Is this meant to be an explanation of the gemara, or of
what the gemara is thinking about the mishna, or what?


> VEHA IKA SEFASO?
> The 10 cubit diameter is for the inner rim whereas the 30 cubit
> circumference is for the outer rim (Rashi).  Assuming that the
> width of each rim is a tefach which is one sixth of a cubit we
> then get approximately 2.903 (remember there are two rims).
> This gives us about 2.903 which is less accurate than 3 and is
> not the nice round number we were looking for.

So the gemara knows that pi is actually something greater than 3.1,
it's looking at this pasuk for confirmation that it's OK to round
it to 3, and it raises the objection that the pasuk seems to be
"rounding" to 2.903?  And therefore that should be the official
halachic approximation, because it's so much easier to work with
2.903 than with 3.142?  Really, how do you think this objector was
understanding the pasuk?  If you read the gemara straight, it's
obvious what the objector was thinking, but if we insist that the
amoraim understood that both the mishna and the pasuk were giving
rounded values, then please explain this makshan's hava amina.


> AMAR RAV PAPA
> The rim was of neglible width.
> 
> VEHA IKA MASHEHU?
> Even a neglible amount is a problem. 
> The problem is that we still get a number (say 2.988) that is less
> accurate than 3 and is not the nice round number we were looking for.

Huh?  We're taking it for granted that the pasuk is rounding, and
yet we cavil at a mashehu, that will cause what problem, exactly,
for our premise?  If the gemara understands the pasuk (as we do)
to be saying that the diameter of the yam was *approximately* 10
amot, and that the circumference was *approximately* 30 amot,
then what difference does it make that the thickness of the rim
was non-zero?  When we learn the pasuk, knowing as we do that
it's rounding the numbers, does it even occur to us to wonder
whether the measurements were taken on the inside or the outside?
The question seems ludicrous.  Only if we assume the pasuk's
numbers to be precise does the question of the thickness of the
rim, and of which surface was being measured, make any sense.



> KI KA CHASHIV
> Both the circumference and diameter are stated with respect to the inner
> rim and thus we get the nice round number 3 as an approximation of Pi.

As opposed to what, an ugly and unwieldy "round number" of slightly
less than 3?  Is that really the gemara's objection to the mishna,
that the mishna ought to have said that we approximate the true
value of pi to 2.903, or 2.999?  Why would it even occur to anybody
to do that?  Anyone who can work with a strange number like that,
can work with 3.1416 just as easily!



> The bottom line is that all these meforshim say that Chazal were well
> aware that 3 is an approximation and the question is only one of usage.

Which of these meforshim say that about *this gemara*, please?



> This also makes sense for a variety of reasons.  One of them is that
> the whole Mishna is talking about approximations, e.g. if the beam
> was made of reeds we view it as if it were made of metal, if round
> we view it as square, if it has a circumference of 3 [we view it
> as if] it has a diameter of 3.

[ZS: I assume that last figure is a typo for 1].

That is NOT what the mishna says.  That is explicitly NOT what it
says, and it's wrong of you to twist its words that way.  The mishna
is not giving approximations, but abstractions.  It's saying that we
don't care whether the beam could actually hold a physical brick,
but only whether it's big enough to hold one, so we abstract the
essential point -- its size -- from the accidents of its material
and shape.  We don't care about this notional brick's shape or
weight, any more than we care about who made it, or the colour of
the truck that delivered it, or how much it cost.   Then, after all
the "if it was...we view it as..." clauses, the mishna changes
language, and states as a *fact* that "any [beam] that has a
circumference of 3 tefachim has a diameter of 1 tefach";  NOT
"we view it as if it had" such a diameter.  Doesn't that change of
language seem significant to you?  How can you read it as simply
a continuation of the preceding list of "we view it"s?



> We are, I would say, forced to learn the Gemora like all the mefarshim.

As opposed to, say, our Tosfos?


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas



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Message: 12
From: Zev Sero <zev@sero.name>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:56:26 -0400
Subject:
Re: [Avodah] [Areivim] Chicken Scandal


Chana Luntz wrote:
> 
> RZS writes:
> 
>> The Raavad/Mechaber position is that all we need to know 
>> about someone is that he is a Jew, and that we *not* know 
>> anything negative about him. If his name is Cohen and we've 
>> never heard of him before, and he tells us the food he's 
>> selling is kosher, we can believe that he's telling the truth 
>> to the best of his knowledge.  (We still have to worry about 
>> how far his knowledge extends; but if he says he bought 
>> everything as raw ingredients, or with a good hechsher, that 
>> he bought his kelim new and has never used them for anything 
>> else, etc, we don't need to worry that he's lying.)
> 
> On what basis do you understand the Raavad in this manner?

It's obvious.  No matter how trustworthy he is, he can only know
as much as he knows.  If he admits that he doesn't know what he's
talking about, can you possibly imagine that the Raavad, or the
Mechaber, would say that we can believe that what he says is true?
What if he honestly doesn't know that pork is not kosher?  


>  The Raavad's
> language is that we can eat by him even if he is an am ha'aretz.
> I would have thought that one of the potential issues with an am
> ha'aretz has to be that he is not knowledgeable.

In those days every Jew, even an am haaretz, knew basic things,
such as that meat must come from a shochet or a kosher butcher,
and it must be salted, that meat and milk don't mix, etc., and
that shaylos must be asked of a rov.  One could assume that if
a Jew claimed that something was kosher he knew what that meant,
and therefore the only thing one needed to worry about was that
he might be dishonest.  To that, the Raavad/Mechaber say that
we needn't worry about dishonesty, every Jew has a chezkat
kashrut.  But if this presumptively honest Jew says lefi tumo
that he killed the chicken himself, or that he cooked it in milk,
then it is simply impossible that the Raavad or the Mechaber
would permit eating it, simply because a Jew put it in front of
one, or said that it was "kosher".


> Once you have to start investigating his level of knowledge,
> then surely whole idea that simply knowing his name is Cohen is
> enough falls by the wayside?

No, because the issue they're dealing with is his trustworthiness,
not his knowledge.  They say that any Jew should be presumed to be
telling the truth *as he knows it*, so long as we don't have a
specific reason to suspect otherwise, and that the mere fact that
he could profit by lying doesn't count as a reason to suspect him.


> And isn't this precisely the contrast discussed at length vis a vis
> shechita?  One of the reasons specifically given eg by the Shach that we
> do not automatically trust a butcher who himself shechts is because the
> laws of shechita are so complex.  The implication of that surely is that
> in relation to  areas of kashrus other than shechita we do not worry
> about how far his knowledge extends.  Hence the argument today ie that
> "because of all the additives and the industrialisation of the food
> industry kashrus has become so complex that you need haschgacha" seems
> to me in effect to be an argument that what once applied vis a vis
> shechita only is now to be applied more generally

Yes, that is indeed what makes our times different than those of
the Shulchan Aruch.


> or in other words, we
> should no longer posken like the Shulchan Aruch.

No, I reject this "in other words".  Knowledge and trustworthiness
are two separate issues.  Those who paskened like the SA before,
and trusted any Jew unless there was specific reason not to, can
continue to do so -- BUT that trust means less than it did then.
In the SA's day, it was unlikely that a Jew would give you treif,
honestly believing it to be kosher; the only possibilities that
needed to be considered were that he was telling the truth or
that he was lying.  Nowadays one who follows the SA still needs
to ask the person how he knows the food is kosher, and to probe
just what he means by that, but he can trust the answers the
person gives to be honest.

And the same applies to the Rambam/Rema position; the only
difference between them and the SA seems to be that they consider
a financial motive to lie as a reason to suspect someone of
dishonesty, unless one has specific reason *not* to suspect him.
But once one does have such specific reason, their position is
the same as that of the SA.  If one has reason to trust him,
one may do so, but once again that only means he's telling the
truth as far as he knows it.  The Rema's known frum person is
exactly the same as the Mechaber's stranger; both are presumed
to be honest, but not necessarily knowledgeable.  In their day,
knowledge simply wasn't an issue, except in the case of shechitah;
today it's an issue much more often.



-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev@sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas


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