Q&A: Ruling Based on Rationales: The Law of Something Dipped in Liquid
Ruling Based on Rationales: The Law of Something Dipped in Liquid
Question
Hello Rabbi!
Rabbi Kapach wrote that one must wash hands only when one actually dips the food into a liquid, and not when it is wet because of washing and the like.
He derives this from a careful reading of the words of the Talmud and Maimonides: “anything dipped in liquid,” and not “anything wet” (and he wrote that this was the practice of his rabbis).
My question is: the rationale explained by the medieval authorities is that hands are second-degree impurity, and the liquid is more susceptible to contracting impurity than anything else. So why should it matter how it became wet?
Should the wording in the Talmud be given more weight than the rationale?
Thank you
Answer
It really does sound strange. And such a weak linguistic inference certainly does not override a simple logical consideration.
Discussion on Answer
Why does that matter? If you think the inference is strong (which is not true here), and you have a different rationale, then you can disagree with them. But I don’t see any other rationale, and the inference is weak.
Apparently the intent of “not everything wet” is to exclude something that did not become wet willingly.
Maybe they decreed it specifically in the common case (and something that normally becomes wet without dipping would not become impure). The inference does seem like a real inference.
Even if the rationale itself is not written in the Talmud, but only in the medieval authorities?