Q&A: Majority Over Time
Majority Over Time
Question
Sorry for sending the question a second time, but only because it’s already been more than two days since I sent it, and usually the Rabbi answers very quickly, so I’m worried it may not have gone through because of some technical problem.
In the Talmud in Ketubot, in the passage about an “open entrance,” it answers the difficulty based on double doubt by saying that in this case it is one doubt and not a double doubt, since this is the wife of a priest, who becomes forbidden even if it happened under coercion. So the only thing left in doubt is whether she committed adultery while married to him or not. But nowhere is it explained that we assign any significance here to the majority, in the sense that there was much more time when she was not yet married to him than time when she was married to him. And even if that is not necessarily always the case, still it is not explained that there is any difference in such a scenario. So seemingly, why shouldn’t we say that she committed adultery before she was married to him, by the rule of following the majority?
Wishing you a joyful festival
Answer
Sorry, I really did miss it for some reason.
Your question is not really on this particular case, but on the whole passage there. After all, the doubt of whether it happened while she was married to him or not, according to your approach, is not really a doubt but a minority against a majority.
Whenever there are two such possibilities, we treat them as evenly balanced.
At first I thought of a statistical rationale. After all, there is no random process here. If we assume that intercourse is an event that occurs at a random time, then it would make sense to follow the majority of the time span. But here it is a matter of people choosing whether to do it and when, so there is no logic in taking the amount of time into account. Similar to what Rabbi Shimon Shkop wrote regarding following the majority in grazing cases in monetary law.
But afterward I also thought about the case of a ritual bath that had been valid and is now found deficient. What is the law for someone who immersed in it in the interim? Seemingly, according to your approach, we should look at the time when the person immersed and see whether it is closer to the time when the ritual bath was valid or to the present time. If it is closer to when it was valid, then in order to assume the immersion was ineffective we would have to say that the ritual bath became deficient during the short time that passed; but it is more plausible that it happened during the longer period that passed from then until now. Notice that here this is a random event, not a human decision, and even so we do not take the time factor into account.
And perhaps in a case where we have no clear measure of time and it is something that depends on degrees and estimates, we do not follow the majority. Or perhaps one could say that time is like something fixed in its place (in its time), and therefore we judge it as fifty-fifty.
Discussion on Answer
Not true. Along the time axis there is a mixture of moments in time, and each moment of time has the status of something fixed. Our doubt is what the moment of intercourse was: was it before the betrothal or after it? And this is fixed in the strongest sense, since no moment has separated from its place in the mixture, that is, from the timeline.
Someone pointed out to me that this is in fact the question of the Rashash there, and he leaves it unresolved:
Under the heading “And if you wish, say”: And if you say, then in a case of double doubt she should also be forbidden, etc. This is difficult from what we say in Hullin 77b, that we combine the minority of anomalous births with the half consisting of females, etc. And likewise in Yevamot 119 we combine the minority of miscarriages with the half consisting of females, etc. And see further above on 67 in Rashi under the heading “all males.” Perhaps one could say that there the half consisting of females is rooted in birth and the natural order of the world, and therefore it is a definite half, unlike the doubt of whether it happened while married to him, etc. But it is difficult for me why, in the case of a priest’s wife, we do not follow the majority of the time that passed before she became betrothed. As in the case of money found on the Temple Mount, which is always ordinary money even during the pilgrimage festival, as stated in Shekalim chapter 7, mishnah 2, because we follow the majority of the year. And similarly this is difficult in Niddah at the beginning of the chapter “The Woman,” regarding three women who wore one robe, where we should follow the one who wore it for a longer time than the others. And likewise in many other places. And although the proof from Shekalim can be rejected, since there one could say that the reason is that if you combine all the ordinary money from the entire year, it will be more than the tithe money from the festival and from the whole year. Still, the logic itself is straightforward, that we should follow the majority of the time, and when majority and proximity conflict, we follow the majority; see Pesachim 7b.
The problem is that there are examples here where we do follow the majority along the time axis, and that does not fit with what I wrote. But on closer look it seems that there is no difficulty: in Shekalim he himself answers it, and in Niddah it is really not a question of one point in time mixed among the other moments, but a discussion of which one of the three women is involved.
With respect, I still didn’t really understand the difference between this and the case of stores.
The difference between what and stores? In stores too there is a rule of fixed status if the piece did not separate but is still in the store.
The difference between this and stores? In stores too there is a rule of fixed status if the piece did not separate but is still in the store.
The answer based on fixed status doesn’t seem applicable here, because the rule that “fixed is treated as half-and-half” is said about the doubtful item itself. In this case, there is an act of intercourse, and I have a certain time range such that if I place the act of intercourse there, she is permitted to her husband, and a smaller time range such that if I place the act there, she is forbidden to him. That is like a doubtful piece of meat with nine stores around it that sell non-kosher meat and one kosher store, where of course we would say the meat is forbidden by the rule of majority even though the store is fixed, and we would not say it is half-and-half. So seemingly here time is like the stores.
Wishing you a joyful festival