Taharah and Names

Avodah
1

Daf Yomi people recently learned (Chullin 123a) about the case of someone owning a tallis that became tamei, hanging it up (otherwise unchanged) as a villon, and suddenly now it’s tahor.

Reminded me of the definition of Hil’ Shabbos, when we talk about Molid or Boneh. Freezing juice to make ices is mutar, because it has at least partially the same name. Making ice from water is subject to machloqes, but for reasons not relevant to this post. Shinui haSheim is enough to make a new object.

Or in baalus. Ownership is transferred through Yi’ush and Shinui. Now Shinui is also measured by whether the change was sufficient to give the object a new name.

This fits R Nachum Rabinovitch’s shita* that halakhah deals more with the world as people relate to it (and with how people should relate to it, and closing the gap between them) than with an objective world-as-it-is. An object is defined not by its physics, chemistry and biology, but by what pigeonhole people put it in – is it a tallis or a villon?

*A barukh shekivanti moment when RYGB posted it, because I have been saying similarly on list for a while by then.

2

Most legal systems are based on human’s lived lives and use their measurement systems accordingly.

The burden of proof is on the belief that Halakhah is either some sort of objective semi-scientific or mystical system.

3

This is somewhat different. I am giving a hashkafic reason that doesn’t apply to legal systems in general.

I am making a fairly Mussar-y, or perhaps Rationalist in general, argument that since the purpose of halakhah is sometimes to express Virtue Ethics and sometimes make one more virtuous to be more capable of being ethical, halakhah needs to deal with that which makes a visceral reaction and therefore the greatest leverage for personal growth / ascent.

Whereas most legal systems are about keeping its citizens safe, its society orderly, and perhaps fostering general wealth and wellbeing.

4

The purpose of legal systems has been discussed and debated for thousands of years.

Many have argued that legal systems should encourage citizens to be virtuous. Certainly moral codes encapsulated in law (which were only overturned in the United Statess by SCOTUS in the stupid Lawrence v. Texas decision) support this position.

5

Live and learn!

6

Even so. I’m not sure halacha is a legal system similar enough to any other to merit the name. What other legal system includes within it terms equivalent to ‘harei zeh mshubach’, ‘mutar aval l’lo b’rtzon chachamim’, ‘mutar bdi’avad’, ‘chayav bi’dei shamayim’, or includes advice for how to acheive transendence in prayer, how to balance ones personal character traits, how to rid oneself of the effects of sin, etc etc.

No, I think the burden of proof is on those who call halacha a legal system when it is really a sui generis practical elucidation of how to keep taryag mitzvos (except those which have no practical halachos of course).

7

How familiar are you with The Code of Manu, Sharia, or Canon Law?

8

To be fair, when one says “Many have argued that legal systems should encourage citizens to be virtuous” most people take them to mean contemporary ideas about Civil Law. Not “The Code of Manu, Sharia, or Canon Law”.

I paused to think about what is the purpose of Civil Law. I told you what I thought off the cuff.

First reflection (perhaps, first of 1):

I don’t think R’ Chanina Segan haKohanim was necessarily saying “שֶׁאִלְמָלֵא מוֹרָאָהּ, אִישׁ אֶת רֵעֵהוּ חַיִּים בְּלָעוֹ” (Avos 3:2) is the purpose of Civil Law. All he says it that this one outcome is sufficient reason to demand our tefillos.

In any case, I think my original point stands. A Baal Mussar would say that Mussar is not only an important way to become capable of fulfilling the Torah to the best of one’s ability, but it is also the goal.

R Simlai (of 613 mitzvos fame) similarly darshened, “תּוֹרָה תְּחִלָּתָהּ גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים, וְסוֹפָהּ גְּמִילוּת חֲסָדִים.” (Sotah 14a)

As the Chinukh says numerous times in numerous variations “האדם הפעל לפי פעוליו”. How do those pe’ulos change us?

Not by what we know in the abstract. If judge intellectual knowledge were sufficient, no one would cave to temptation. I wouldn’t be overweight and under-exercised! We make nearly all of decisions at a more visceral level. (Although if you believe Mussar, (or the foundations Behavioral-Cognitive Therapy) it takes both behavior and cognitive levels to change those visceral reactions. Eventually.

So if the goal of the rest of those 613 is to be capable of becoming a better baal chessed, then we care about the raw unmediated experiences our actions give us.

Which gets me back to the world-as-it-appears is more important to halakhah than the world as it objectively and scientifically is.

While we are listing Micha’s open questions, let’s discuss this in addition to the newer entry about the role of law:

Qabbalah considers darkness and evil to be things. Actual created ontologies.

Science says dark is an absence of light.

The Avudraham (Abu-Dirham) says ובורא חושך … ובורא את הרע (as the navi put it, we say “הכל” as a euphamism ) are the creation of empty spaces that didn’t yet get filled with Light or Peace.

People have no problem giving words to darkness, tragedy, or cold, however. These things have experiential existence even though they refer to a lack of a physical “thing”.

Perhaps Qabbalah’s עולם העשיה too is the World As Experienced. And its point is that it’s not physics that causes Light or Darkness, but just the means Hashem uses to bring metaphysical Light or Darkness reach out experience. Switching the scientific cart and the experiential horse.

9

I’d like to suggest that he is saying a bit more: That even with a good civil government, the most you can hope for is that people will not “eat each other alive”. That is, a civil government can insure a lack of violence, but it offers nothing in the way of people being nice to each other.

I cannot imagine how a human government could possibly be set up to make people nice. The government can run social services to help the disadvantaged, such as welfare money or soup kitchens, but that’s a far cry from improving the citizens and making them into better people. This is a job than can be done only by the בוחן כליות ולב

Akiva Miller