Q&A: It Is Enough for What Comes from an Inference to Be Like the Source Case
It Is Enough for What Comes from an Inference to Be Like the Source Case
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Congratulations on the publication of the trilogy.
What is the logic of “it is enough for what comes from an inference to be like the case from which it is derived”?
If this is not logic but rather something learned from a verse, how does the Talmud (Bava Kamma 25a) compare the case of Miriam, where there is no clear measure of comparison that would bring us to 14 days, with the case of an ox’s goring in the damaged party’s property, where there is a clear reason to arrive at full damages, as with tooth and foot in the damaged party’s property?
Thank you very much
Answer
The logic is very clear. You know that it goes beyond the source case, but you do not know by how much. Therefore, you remain at the level of the source case.
As for the 14 days, the commentators there already addressed this (if I remember correctly, Pnei Yehoshua and others). But in principle those answers are unnecessary, because one need not relate specifically to 14. The intent is to more than 7, and opposite that the rule of “it is enough” is brought. After all, there too Rabbi Tarfon applies “it is enough,” so it is clear that the number 14 is not exact. The idea is that there was an initial assumption that more than 7 days would be required, and the verse teaches us that it is only 7.
Discussion on Answer
Obviously—I understood that before as well. So what? I think I answered that.
I didn’t understand. In Miriam’s case, I know it is more than 7. But I do not know by how much, so I stay with 7. But in the case of goring in the damaged party’s property, I know it is more than half-damages, but here I actually do know by how much, at least partially—I know it is at least full damages, like tooth and foot in the damaged party’s property. So why stay with half-damages and not go up to full damages?
Not correct. The difference is only regarding the initial assumption. In Miriam’s case, it is not clear how they arrived initially at 14, because there is no basis for that at all. By contrast, with tooth and foot the initial assumption is full damages, because that is a natural limit (in the other primary categories of damage). But in the conclusion they say “it is enough,” and reject both initial assumptions. With tooth and foot as well, the possibilities are either half or full, and the minimum is half—and that is the “it is enough.”
What I explained was only how they got to the initial assumption of 14 in Miriam’s case. About that I said that it is not necessarily exact.
But how can one prove from the verse that the initial assumption is incorrect? Instead, we could have said the distinction I wrote, and then we would say “it is enough” only in cases like Miriam’s, but not in cases like goring in the damaged party’s property. Why do they reach the conclusion that there is always “it is enough”?
I explained: we see from the verse that even if a greater possibility exists, we stick to the minimal one. The same applies to tooth and foot: there too there are several possibilities (1 or half), and one should stick to the minimal one.
Why are there several possibilities with tooth and foot? At least in the second formulation of Rabbi Tarfon’s a fortiori argument in the Mishnah, it seems that only the possibility of full damages remains (or higher possibilities, but if we go beyond full damages we would not know where to stop).
P.S. I really appreciate the effort you put into responding to every comment, especially at such hours. Thank you.
The claim there is that both possibilities exist: in one a fortiori argument the result is full damages, and in the second the result is half-damages. So there are two possible outcomes. We choose the minimal one.
True, one could say that it is enough that there is one a fortiori argument yielding the higher result in order to say that the liability is full damages, and in the second a fortiori argument the result is above half. One is above half, so that fits with both of them.
But in our book on the logical hermeneutic principles, we showed that this is not so. The two formulations of the a fortiori argument are not two arguments but one. Therefore the two outcomes are two possibilities, and one must choose the minimal one.
I still didn’t understand. After all, the whole idea of an a fortiori argument is that the final conclusion cannot be lower than the lenient case to which we compared our case, and that is supposed to set a lower bound for the minimal option we are allowed to choose. If you reject that—then there is no more a fortiori argument. I saw that Tosafot raised this difficulty and answered it, but I did not manage to understand their answer. Could you give me an example of an a fortiori argument where even the Rabbis who disagree with Rabbi Tarfon do not say “it is enough”?
I didn’t understand. Why should there be an a fortiori argument where the Rabbis would not say “it is enough”?
In our case, the result of half-damages is like the source case (the lenient one), when you compare the damaged party’s courtyard to the public domain regarding goring. True, when you compare the damaging agents within the damaged party’s courtyard it comes out as full damages. About that I wrote to you that we explained in an article that, contrary to what people think about these two arguments (from the domains and from the damaging agents), this is one and the same argument.
In Rabbi Tarfon’s case, the source case is tooth and foot in the damaged party’s property, and the Rabbis who disagree with him use “it is enough” in order to stay with less than what exists in the source case.
Unlike the 7 days, where we do not know how much to add, in the case of goring in the damaged party’s property there actually is a clear limit—full damages, like tooth and foot.