Q&A: Berakhot 23a
Berakhot 23a
Question
Hello Rabbi,
We learned today in the Daf Yomi the following Talmudic passage in tractate Berakhot about entering a bathroom with phylacteries:
"…Rather, is it not referring to phylacteries, and this is a refutation of Rava? Rav Sheshet said: It is indeed a refutation. In any case, there is still a difficulty: now, if a permanent bathroom is permitted, then an occasional bathroom all the more so should be permitted. This is what it means: a permanent bathroom, where there are no droplets, is permitted; an occasional bathroom, where there are droplets, is forbidden. If so, why does it say: this argument has no answer? It is in fact an excellent answer. This is what it means: this matter should be derived as a reason, and should not be derived by an a fortiori inference, for if it were derived by an a fortiori inference, this would be an a fortiori inference to which there is no answer."
Rashi there explains:
"For if it were derived by an a fortiori inference — to say that the law should be lenient in the case of an occasional bathroom, which is lighter, and stringent in the case of a permanent bathroom, which is more severe — and you should not follow the reason but rather follow the relative severity and leniency; yet we do the opposite. I have nothing to answer you, because I cannot find any situation in which an occasional bathroom would be more severe than a permanent one, so that I could respond: if I permitted in the permanent one, which is lighter in some respect, then surely I would permit in the occasional one, which is more severe in that respect. But there is a reason for what we do: here there are droplets and here there are not. And this is not an a fortiori inference at all, neither lighter nor more severe."
My question is this:
Isn’t this just a semantic issue?
Seemingly, I could turn the concern about droplets itself into a refutation of the a fortiori inference:
"What is true of an occasional bathroom, where there are droplets, can you say of a permanent bathroom, where there are no droplets?" In other words, instead of viewing this as a "reason," I can view it as a "stringency" that refutes the a fortiori inference from within.
And a second question from the other direction: from the Talmud here it seems that if there is some external reason to be stringent דווקא in the lighter case and not in the more severe one, then that overrides the interpretive rule of a fortiori inference, which would have led to a different conclusion, even though there is no formal refutation of it. If so, doesn’t that "collapse" almost all the a fortiori inferences in the Talmud? After all, one can almost always find some reason why, despite the a fortiori inference, there is a reason to apply the law only to the case that is ostensibly the "lighter" one.
Answer
I think the discussion here is about the question of how Jewish law operates. When determining the law for a permanent bathroom and an occasional bathroom, do we follow the specific reason for the law, or do we follow the relative levels of severity of these places? If we follow the reason, then there is room to be more stringent in the occasional one; but if we determine the law based on the levels of severity, then we cannot be more lenient in a permanent bathroom than in an occasional one. The reasoning based on droplets is not a refutation of the a fortiori inference, because the a fortiori inference is not dealing with the specific law of urinating while wearing phylacteries, but with the relationship of severity/holiness between the two types of bathrooms. The droplets are not about their general relative severity, but rather a specific consideration regarding the prohibition of urinating.
By the way, one should distinguish here between the question of entering a bathroom with phylacteries (even if they are in one’s hand), which is certainly connected only to the a fortiori inference and to the status of the two places, and the prohibition of urinating, which also depends on the issue of droplets.
The first paragraph here also answers your last question.
Discussion on Answer
Just for pilpul, I’ll add that if there is focused reasoning (as I suggested, since this is a rabbinic law with a known reason), then why is focused reasoning (droplets) good enough as a refutation (based on reasoning) of the a fortiori inference? In the end, we are refuting the a fortiori inference with focused reasoning about focused reasoning (overall, two focused reasonings), and if so, turtle upon turtle, a fortiori upon a fortiori, and we no longer have any way to decide whether to rely on focused reasoning or not.
In the terms of the Quartet (or somewhere else?), this is an anti-paradox, since if we choose to assume that focused reasoning is not good enough, then there is no opposing argument at all (because the focused reasoning that says that focused reasoning is good enough — is itself not good enough, by assumption).
Though it seems more likely that a discussion about the rules of a fortiori inference (and not about a particular a fortiori inference) is just a regular discussion like anything else, and definitely open to reasoning. In particular, the whole reason a refutation based on reasoning is ineffective (as far as I know) is only because “I will incorporate all this,” and therefore there is no separate foundational assumption here; rather, one has to examine in each case whether it can be incorporated. So perhaps one could say that only in Torah-level law can it be incorporated, whereas in rabbinic law it cannot, insofar as the reasoning is focused in line with the rationale.
Sorry for the flood.
Google sent me to Bava Metzia 3b: “And is this not an a fortiori inference? Just as there, in the case of an ox that gored a cow and its fetus was found beside it, where there is a monetary claim for this one and a monetary claim for that one, and it can be said that all belongs to one and it can be said that all belongs to the other, Sumchus says that money in doubt is divided without an oath; here, in the case of two people holding a garment, where there is no independent monetary basis [and furthermore] it can be said that it belongs to both of them, all the more so.” You can even say it follows Sumchus — this oath is rabbinic, as Rabbi Yohanan said, etc.
And the Shitah Mekubetzet writes there: “And if you say, what kind of answer is this? From the outset he also knew perfectly well that this oath is rabbinic, and nevertheless it was difficult for him according to Sumchus: why did they institute an oath more in the case of a found item than in the case of an ox that gored? So how does this answer solve that?” And he answers, etc.
Maybe in fact the explanation in that sugya is like the explanation in the sugya in Berakhot: the question was whether we go by a general hierarchy or by focused considerations, and it was resolved that we go by focused considerations. Precisely because it is rabbinic.
The Talmudic passage:
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=37964&st=&pgnum=16
Shitah Mekubetzet:
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%98%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%AA_%D7%A2%D7%9C_%D7%94%D7%A9%22%D7%A1/%D7%91%D7%91%D7%90_%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%90/%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%A7_%D7%90/%D7%93%D7%A3_%D7%92
It seems that here the whole discussion is about a rabbinic enactment. One could suggest that a refutation based on reasoning is not relevant to an a fortiori inference in Torah-level laws, because we normally say: “I will incorporate all this into the a fortiori inference” — that is, there is proof from the laws themselves that the general reasoning is not correct. That is because we do not expound the reason of the verse, and therefore the reasoning has to be general and cannot be directed specifically against the particular law we want to derive. But in rabbinic enactments, since the reason is known, then a refutation from reasoning is focused on the specific law we want to derive, and therefore it cannot simply be incorporated into the a fortiori inference. If that is indeed so, then maybe there is a general conclusion here: with rabbinic laws, 1) we do derive by a fortiori inference, and 2) a focused refutation based on reasoning, in line with the reason for the enactment, is a good refutation. [It seems to me that all of this can be read into the answer you wrote, but it’s clearer if the Rabbi himself takes the trouble to write it. And all the more so if it’s not correct.]