Q&A: Rabbinic Majority (Corrected)
Rabbinic Majority (Corrected)
Question
(Following the sharp criticism of a grumbling old man, I paid attention to my unruly keyboard. Thanks, Grandpa.)
In the passage in Ketubot 9a, it is explained that rape becomes known. Tosafot write there that this is a majority only by rabbinic law, and therefore it does not help for a double doubt. (So that we should not say: perhaps it was rape, since if it had been rape it would have become known.)
My question is:
What does a rabbinic majority even mean?! Either it is true that most such cases become known, or it is not true. After all, we are talking here about facts: whether rape victims tell others or not, and that should be examined on the basis of statistics!
Answer
Tosafot bring an example from a baby next to dough, in Kiddushin 80a. But at first glance we do not find anything there about this issue. It seems that their intention is to the end of the passage there:
It was taught in accordance with Rabbi Yohanan: There are two cases involving entities that do not have understanding to be asked, yet the Sages treated them as though they do have understanding to be asked: a baby, and one other case. A baby—this is what we said …
We see that since a baby is in the category of one who does not have understanding to be asked, we should have ruled the case pure in a situation of doubt; and nevertheless, the Sages were stringent and ruled the dough impure, rather than leaving both the dough and the baby in their presumptive status. We see that there are situations in which by Torah law there is no majority here, and the Sages were stringent and treated it as though there were a majority. Something similar exists with demai, where most amei ha’aretz do tithe, yet nevertheless the Sages gave it the status of doubt.
Tosafot hold that here too this is the situation. Strictly speaking, there is no majority for consent here, but the Sages were stringent and treated it as though it were a majority. But with respect to a double doubt, one should not be stringent on that basis.
One must remember that a majority regarding consent is not a simple empirical majority, but an assessment by the Sages of women’s nature. There is no clear numerical figure here, and therefore the assessment of whether there is or is not a majority belongs to the Sages. So there is no difficulty in saying that there are situations in which they were stringent and treated it as though there were a majority, but they were not stringent regarding a double doubt…
Discussion on Answer
Who said it does not determine it? Their assessment is that there is no clear majority, and therefore they were rabbinically stringent to treat it as a majority.
Is this relevant to our times? That depends on the reality in our times. If in our case too there is doubt, I assume the decree remains in force. If there is a clear reality, I assume there is no longer any rationale for it.
See Tosafot there, where they discuss this because of the rabbinic majority, so that we should not say it is a double doubt since the majority is “only” rabbinic.
Tam, have you decided to keep driving me crazy? That’s exactly where we started, and I already answered that.
I really did not want to drive you crazy, and certainly not to continue something I didn’t start.
What I meant was that Tosafot seems to imply that the majority is for leniency and not for stringency, whereas from the Rabbi’s words it sounds like the majority is for stringency, like a non-present majority.
Those were your words.
“Who said it does not determine it? Their assessment is that there is no clear majority, and therefore they were rabbinically stringent to treat it as a majority”
The majority is for stringency. If it was with consent, that is a stringency. But with respect to a double doubt, we do not treat it as a majority, and therefore one may be lenient.
You asked why the majority does not determine it. And I explained that it does determine it, and that is also what I wrote earlier. So the question seems beside the point to me.
The Sages’ assessment of women’s nature is a psychological assessment, and to the extent that they understood a woman’s psyche as being such that she would tell almost anything, including an act of rape she experienced, shouldn’t that be given the weight of a non-present majority?
And why does the Sages’ assessment not determine the doubtful reality before us?