Re: Why do people buy kosher?

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 3:51am GMT, Steve Goldfarb wrote:
:>> That applies to all superstitions - the mind makes a connection that isn't
:>> really there, it completes a perceived pattern even when the causal
:>> connection doesn't exist....

:> No, it creates a non-existent pattern and convinces someone to look for
:> it.

: Whatever, same thing.

: You seem to be suggesting that although there's no meat, you pretend that
: there is because it seems like their ought to be meat. Right? That's
: perfectly natural/normal human behavior, but it's not rational. It's the
: definition of superstition - which is, of course, a vital survival
: mechanism.

I'm saying that people in practice do think about the meat if the pot
was recently used for cooking meat or spicey meaty foods, anything that
woudl be hard to get out of the pot. Given this reality, this mental
aura of "meatiness" about the pot, they now sit down and decide what
the halakhah should be.

The realia behind "ta'am basar" is not molecules of meat trapped inside
the metal, but that mental association. That's the "thing" about which
they are ruling.

Superstition would be belief that the meat would somehow impact me even
after it left, with no causal connection. Here there is a connection --
the pot reminds people of meat.

Just as a wedding ring reminds someone of their spouse. Is treating a
wedding ring with respect "superstition"? Only if they thing it would
somehow impact their marriage not to. But simply to do so because of the
personal value it has to them? Certainy not.

Jumping back a bit:
:> How events look to us may not be how they really are. That doesn't mean
:> the perception is unconnected to how they really are.
....
:> I'm taking a riff on that theme by saying that halakhah is ignoring
:> the maggot egg because in general halakhah ignores that which we can't
:> perceive. Instead it deals with how the world looks.

: These two sentences seem to be saying the opposite. Following your rule
: that halacha ignores that which we cannot perceive, one would expect that
: any reside that might be within the pot should be ignored.

: You're flipping back and forth between what we know or think we know, and
: what we perceive. If I understand correctly, you're saying we can ignore
: the maggot eggs, even though we know they're there, because we cannot
: perceive them (unaided, though we may infer them later by the presence of
: maggots) But with meat resude you're saying the opposite, even though we
: cannot perceive it, it's not part of how the world looks, nevertheless
: becase we think it's there we give our (incorrect) thoughts precedence
: over our observations. Those are opposite conclusions.

There is no observation in either case. Thus, maggot eggs and miroscopic
particles of meat do not enter the discussion. So, when the sages speak
of a "taste" of meat, what are they speaking of? This is when I suggest
they are speaking of something other than the chemistry.

In the case of the maggots, the perception is that they came from the
meat. And in fact, the only cause that is visible that produced maggots
large enough not to be kosher is the meat. That perception is the topic
of the halachic ruling, not the invisible cause, the egg.

Steve writes of my "flipping back and forth between what we know or
think we know, and what we perceive." This is related to Don's question,
posted on Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 12:26am GMT:
:> we can't forget it WAS there. That mental association is the
:> ta'am of the meat that makes that pot fleishig. The physics explanation
:> translates "ta'am" as taste, which would be the first definition in
:> a dictionary. But in Rabbinic Hebrew, it's also "meaning", "purpose"
:> or perhaps "post-facto explanation"; to give something a ta'am is to
:> embue it with meaning. I'm saying that given that worldview, ta'am isn't
:> about microscopic particles of meat, but about mental association.

: I *think* I understand what you're saying. About the above, though, I
: have a question:
: If I give my stew pot to you, after a decent cleaning, and you have no
: knowledge of what I've cooked in that pot, is it a meaty pot? if so,
: how do you have that association?

One thing I glossed over is that there are really multiple distinctions:
4- What I experienced and know.

Clear cut, since objective reality and perception match.

2- What no one experienced, but someone in theory could have.

The classical case: Three pieces of fat are now mixed together. We
know from before the confusion, that two are permissable fats, and
the third is cheilev (which must be removed).

All three are kosher. In fact, all three may be eaten sequentially
by the same person -- we don't add up the odds and say there is a
100% chance he ate cheilev. Even odder: there are opinions among the
rishonim that the three could be cooked together in a single stew
and would be kosher!

In my theory, this is because the reality of each peice of fat is the
mental theory that it's probably kosher. The odds of what it really is
doesn't enter the question. The question the rishonim debate is whether
that reality is measured when I find the pieces or when I eat them --
and if the latter case, the "probably okay" status of when I find
them is replaced by the "definitely got cheilev in there" of the stew.

3- What someone experienced, but the person making the decision does
not know. Including the case where the someone was me, but I no
longer know.

Here's a relevent beraisa (tannaitic material that didn't make it
into R' Yehudah haNasi's redaction of the mishnah; in this case,
quoted a number of times in the talmud: Pesachim 9b, Kesuvos 15a,
Chullin 95a and Niddah 18a) for discussing the difference between
this case and the previous one:

[A city has] nine stores all of which sell shechted meat, and one
store that sells neveilah meat (meat killed in other ways). Someone
buys from one of them, but he doesn't know which of them he bought
from. His doubt makes the meat prohibited.

But if the meat were just found, one may follow rov (the majority).

The first case is called "qavu'ah" (established), the latter is "parish"
(separated [from a group]). The rules are "kol qavu'ah kemechtzah al
mechtzah dami -- anything established is like 1/2 vs 1/2", meaning,
we are stringent in such doubts where they arise in applying a Torah law,
and lenient if it's a rabbinic law. The other rule is "kol deparish
meirubah parish -- anything that separated, separated from the
majority".

Tosafos (Zevachim 72b "ela amar Rava") define the distinction between
the two as "qavu'ah only applies to a thing that was known."

R' Aqiva Eiger (responsum #136) explains the distinction between the
two by saying there are two types of birur ([doubt] clarification):
ways that resolve what to do when the halakhah is uncertain, and ways
of applying halakhah to uncertain situations.

IOW, the distinction between our two categories. In cases where it
could have been experienced but wasn't, there are in principle facts
about which to rule, but the situation is unknown. There, we follow
majority. In cases where it was experienced but the person making
the decision doesn't know what they learned, majority does not apply.

I am suggesting that majority applies in the first case because
something we could experience and don't know has a reality of "I
don't know", which comes in various magnitudes of doubt. The topic
mater of that ruling is the mental doubt, not the object. And there
we discuss probably.

Once a halakhah has been created because it actually was observed,
don't rely on majority any more than you would when playing russian
roulette.

I could also expand this into a discussion of why two witnesses have
the same judicial weight as 100, and if two contradict the testimony
of 100, both testimonies are ignored. Whichever side isn't lying saw
and thereby established a halachic state. Majority therefore can't
be used.

4- What we can not experience (eg: maggot eggs).

Here there is no reality about which to rule.

If taam means what I am suggesting it does, it's a special case WRT
food -- a means of carrying a past state into the present.

This is akin to the concept of chazaqah demei'ikara -- a presumption
that things are still in the state they were before. This kind of
presumption can be explained in psychological terms. Ever leave
someone sitting and reading in a room and you come back a long while
later to find they are sitting in the same seat and reading? Don't
we all assume they were /still/ sitting there? "Are you STILL in that
seat?" "No, I got up, went to work. Just got back."

According to the Sheiv Shemaatsa (6:22), a chazaqah demei'ikarah has
the authority to decide in the case of 2 witnesses vs 2 witnesses. If
something was once in a known state, and now there arose doubt as to
whether it still is true and there is conflicting testimony for both
sides, we assume the state still holds.

There is another kind of presumption, chazaqah disvara, that the usual
rules of nature applied. People don't declare themselves evil. Or sin
when they have nothing to personally gain from it. Etc...

The Sheiv Shemaatsa says, though, that this second kind of presumption
does NOT factor into the decision in the case of conflicting testimony.

Using the model I'm developing: In the case of conflicting witnesses,
the halakhah was established, and therefore the question is not on the
world-as-experienced, but what was that halakhah. Therefore, the old
halakhic state has "a vote" in making a decision. However, rules of
thumb about how the world works, the assumptions that color our
perceptions of the world, do not.

What does all this mean WRT Don's question?

Well, if someone knew that the pot was used for meat and I didn't, the
case is one where the halakhah exists, the pot is meaty, and I don't
know about that halachic state. If I did not take proper precautions, I
could be held accountable for playing "russian roulette" with Torah
law.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

--
Micha Berger For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha@xxxxxxxxxxx And the Torah, its light.
http://www.aishdas.org - based on Mishlei 6:2
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