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Boundaries in the commandments

שו”תBoundaries in the commandments
asked 10 months ago

Peace and blessings,
 
Do you think there is room for a logical proportion – not based on sources – towards the observance of the commandments?
 
I will try to explain this with an example: I saw Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky asked about the laws of genizah and the respect of books whether the eraser crumbs from erasing Torah verses need genizah…. Now I will further clarify my question: It is possible that halakha as a legal system should really deal with extreme cases as well (if only to clarify the principles), but I wonder if a person should not have a simple intuition that there are limits to logic, and that is not what the Torah was talking about. Do you agree? Assuming that is the case, do you agree that these are principles of thought that are not extracted directly from the Torah, but rather are prior logical assumptions? That is, it is possible and possible to provide proof for this from the poskim, but in principle even if there was no direct proof, it is simply on a logical level. I will only point out that the above example is only an illustration, theoretically it may actually be a good question, etc.
 
A similar question: Are there limits to the mitzvot beyond which it is not considered ‘fear of God’ but rather foolishness? Example: Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the Torah says that the etrog should be yellow. Do you think that a person who scrutinizes with a magnifying glass and searches for every single dot on the etrog and checks to see if it is yellow or, God forbid, a dot with a different hue – is that already foolishness? Now I will try to explain more: I understand that the line is not very sharp, but assuming that there is a line (is there?), when you hear a story about such a person – who asks and consults, etc., etc. and checks using yet another device, etc. – when you hear about such a person, do you reflect, “I don’t think this is exactly what the Torah intended, but it really is a high religious level, and there is no doubt that God is happy about this,” or do you reflect that this is just ignorance and illogical behavior. In fact, this too can be refined into two questions: (a) Is such a person more God-fearing? (b) Is the Torah ‘happy’ about this? It is possible that it is indeed stupidity and the Torah did not intend this, but this behavior indicates godliness (an indication).
 
So what do you think about that?


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מיכי Staff answered 10 months ago
I once heard Rabbi Abba Shaul asked if something is leavened on Passover, it is forbidden to drink water from the Sea of ​​Galilee because there are fishermen who throw bread into it. He replied that even something has a lesson. He meant exactly your idea, which I very much agree with. By the way, this does not necessarily mean that the one who searches for a yellow spot with a magnifying glass is not a Yirsh. He is a Yirsh, even if he does not apply it correctly (the search is an indication, in your language). And perhaps for some people this is also a correct application, and we should not assume that the work of God is uniform for everyone. After all, for you and me it’s probably right to do so.

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