Q&A: Fixed and Separated
Fixed and Separated
Question
Hello Michi
Something along the lines of what you wrote in your third rationale was once argued by Yudi Youngster (back when we were in yeshiva…) regarding the view of Rabbenu Hananel. I sent him an email, and this is what he reminded me of (the explanation below is his).
Best regards, N’
As cited by Rabbi Hananel (Ketubot 15a, s.v. “bakarona”):
Nine shops, and he bought… his doubt is forbidden, for we say: anyone who wants to buy goes around to each and every shop; he buys from whoever sells more cheaply. And the non-kosher shop sells more cheaply, therefore we are concerned that he bought from it…
At the time I argued that his intent was just to point to an example of the underlying logic, which in today’s formulation would be: deciding on the basis of majority is possible only when the question as it arises before us is a question about reality as it stands, and there is no action that we know of that created the doubt. If there is such an action, for example when we know that a person bought meat or that a mouse took something before our eyes from one of the piles, it is impossible to ignore the fact that actions are done through causality, whatever that causality may be—for example, comparison shopping in search of the cheapest meat. And since it is clear to us that there is causality behind the result before us, it is impossible to decide solely by majority and minority, which is a mode of decision suited only to cases in which we can ignore the actions that brought about the situation before us (because we do not know at all that there were such actions), such as when meat is found among the shops. And since one cannot decide on the basis of majority, while on the other hand one cannot clarify the causality that led to the result, nothing remains but to leave it as a doubt—that is, fifty-fifty.
Answer
If I understood correctly, you mean to distinguish between a random action and a person’s decision based on considerations he makes, which is not something random.
This is Oman’s suggestion that was brought up in the talkbacks. I replied there that although it is indeed similar to what I wrote, this formulation seems problematic to me, because even a man who separated from his home in the city to this woman had made a human decision, and nevertheless from the Talmud in Ketubot 15a it emerges that this is considered a case of separation, and we follow the majority (the majority of the city’s residents).
Beyond that, even a piece found in the street got there by means of a person who bought it and lost it. There too there was a human decision to buy it there.
True, in that case one could distinguish and say that since we do not know who the person was, and each person has his own considerations, this can be treated as a random variable. But for Rabbi Hananel that is certainly not correct, because he speaks about a cheap shop and an expensive one, and those are considerations shared by all people.
And his words are puzzling in general, because according to his view, if we know which shop is the cheapest, why should we not simply assume it came from there? All the more so since he ignores market rules: despite the price difference, there is probably some advantage to each shop (air conditioning, proximity, shopping convenience, kosher supervision), otherwise it would not survive. The fact is that there are buyers at all the shops. And again, if it is known that most of them buy from shop x, it is still unclear why we should not conclude that the piece came from there.