Question about a woman who fell in front of a boil-stricken man
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about the Hovah Amina in the Gemara Tractate Bk 11b: “A woman who fell before a stricken woman will be punished without a trial, because she did not sanctify herself.” The commentators make it difficult and make excuses there at length. But it is still difficult for me, why is there an understanding that when things go wrong, this constitutes sufficient cause to say that she did not sanctify herself on this account. After all, in many things in life, we do things, knowing and accepting that things can go wrong, and yet we do them – for example, we drive a car, invest in stocks, marry partners, give birth to children, and so on and so forth. In all of these things, we are aware of the dangers, and yet we consciously choose to take the risk (because overall the chance/risk ratio pays off for us). If so, how can we say that when the risk materializes, we can turn the wheel back and cancel the decision?
It could be added that in decisions/transactions that involve concealment of information or some kind of deception, perhaps the rule of buying a mistake can be applied there. But in cases where there was no intent to deceive/conceal (like Yevama who fell before Mocha Chichin), how does that apply?
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