Q&A: That There Is No Partial Placenta Without a Fetus
That There Is No Partial Placenta Without a Fetus
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In Bava Kamma 11a:
“Ulla said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: If a placenta emerged partially on the first day and partially on the second day, we count for her from the first day. Rava said to him: What is your reasoning? To be stringent? This stringency leads to a leniency, for you would thereby purify her from the first day. Rather, Rava said: She must be concerned, but we do not count for her except from the second day. What does this teach us? That there is no partial placenta without a fetus.”
The Talmud concludes that Ulla’s statement comes to teach that “there is no partial placenta without a fetus,” and in the process incidentally gives us a Jewish law ruling (regarding counting the days in a case where a placenta emerges).
- Where does the assumption come from that indeed there is no partial placenta without a fetus? Was this transmitted as a tradition from Rabbi Eliezer (and if so, from where did he infer / learn it)?
- Is this an a priori assumption (revealed through the back-and-forth between Ulla and Rava), or is what we are actually given the law (“she must be concerned, but we do not count for her except from the second day”), and from that they prove “backward” that this assumption must hold? (Otherwise there would be a double doubt, and they would not be stringent that the woman who gave birth is impure from the first day according to Rashi.)
- Do we have here a case of epistemic doubt or ontic doubt? Let me explain:
- Is there a definition of what counts as most of the fetus (or alternatively, a minority of the fetus) in a case where it is dissolved, according to Rashi s.v. “If a placenta emerged,” and they simply are unable to determine it in reality — in which case this is a kind of epistemic doubt.
- A practical implication might be that today, with medical tools, perhaps it would be possible.
- Or is there not even such a definition, so that there is no way at all to determine whether most of the fetus emerged on the first day or the second day — in which case this is a kind of ontic doubt.
- Is there a definition of what counts as most of the fetus (or alternatively, a minority of the fetus) in a case where it is dissolved, according to Rashi s.v. “If a placenta emerged,” and they simply are unable to determine it in reality — in which case this is a kind of epistemic doubt.
Thank you very much.
Answer
Your numbering is problematic. If the main numbering is with numbers, the secondary level ought to be with letters.
- It is possible that he understood this from observation of the world or from reasoning, like many other facts (and that does not mean he was necessarily correct). Rabbi Elazar apparently understood it this way and therefore treated it as one doubt and not a double doubt. The Talmud accepted the ruling he established and wondered what he thought about the fetus. From his halakhic ruling it inferred that in his view there is no partial placenta without a fetus, because otherwise there would be a double doubt here.
- I do not think there is a sharp definition, but one can form an impression. Like many halakhic questions that depend on estimation: from when does an embryo have the status of a person? How much counts as significant eating — an olive-bulk; what counts as a significant garment — three by three, and the like. Therefore, if there are medical data, they certainly have significance, and the question can be decided accordingly. I do not think this is connected to the question of whether this is epistemic or ontic doubt. The question is whether the doubt concerns what counts as most of a fetus, or whether most of a fetus is defined and the doubt is whether every placenta contains most of a fetus and when. A doubt in the definition of a concept, or a doubt about reality. It is not connected to ontic versus epistemic.