Q&A: Habit
Habit
Question
According to the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who hold that the presumption regarding an ox that becomes a forewarned ox is a presumption of habituation, how does the Talmud in Yevamot 64 derive from there that after three times a woman is considered lethal? There it is a sign, not a habit.
Answer
I have a lecture about this somewhere in my lecture summaries on the tractates. If I remember correctly, it’s on the chapter “The Presumption of Ownership”: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AL7gBAffWF7AcFI&id=395204EC53F39CE0%212880&cid=395204EC53F39CE0
See there in the first lectures on “those who went down to Usha.” By the way, here on the site too I once showed (Column 308) that in the dispute between Maharam of Rothenburg and Rabbenu Peretz, the views are actually completely the opposite of what the later authorities think.
Regardless of this or that view, the Talmud itself draws comparisons between presumptions established by three occurrences that have different characters. So I suggested there that the derivation is that after three times a presumption is established, whether it is habituation or a sign. This lecture is formal-halakhic / of Jewish law, since it is obvious that not in every context are דווקא three times the ultimate proof. Jewish law had to set a line, and it set it at three times. It makes no difference whether it is habituation or a sign. See also here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%97%D7%95%D7%96%D7%A8-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%A6%D7%9E%D7%95
Discussion on Answer
Exactly. Not only is there room to question what the later authorities say, but as I showed, they actually reverse the positions even on their own terms.
Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda’s dispute is apparently about a question that pertains specifically to the forewarned ox and not to the presumption of three occurrences. For example: do we require a presumption of three days of goring or of three gorings? By the way, it’s possible that one of them holds that the presumption of three occurrences is only a sign or only a cause (and then disagrees with the passages that link the different cases to one another), but I’m arguing that this is not the point of dispute between them.
What is the logic behind Rabbi Yehuda’s view to go by days of goring rather than the gorings themselves?
That’s the ordinary logic of a presumption based on three occurrences. If it gored on three days, it will gore on the other days too.
If I understood you correctly, you’re basically saying that after three times we know that we need to relate to the matter in a certain way. The question whether it is a sign or a cause is the second stage, where we explain why reality should be treated that way, and we choose the story that seems more plausible to us—in the case of the forewarned ox, for some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) it’s a cause, whereas in the case of a lethal woman it’s a sign. But according to this explanation, there is room to question what the later authorities say about the dispute between Maharam and Rabbenu Peretz. According to this explanation, it could be that even with the forewarned ox itself, sometimes we would take the more plausible story to be a sign and sometimes the more plausible story to be a cause. For example, if Rabbenu Peretz holds that close-together gorings are preferable only if we are dealing with a sign, then it could be that even though with gorings spread farther apart we have two options there (both sign and cause), he would hold that it is a habit; but with close-together gorings, where there is only one option (a sign), he would choose that in order to explain the reality. If so, one cannot say that Rabbi Yehuda accepts Rabbi Meir’s line but holds that a forewarned ox is a cause, since this is not a polar dispute and this is only stage two, where we choose the more plausible interpretation of the event—and here the only option is a sign. So then what do Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Meir disagree about according to Rabbenu Peretz?