Q&A: On the Essential Difference Between Majority and Fixed Status
On the Essential Difference Between Majority and Fixed Status
Question
Hello Rabbi!
I would like to ask a challenging question that was asked by the yeshiva head where I study, concerning the laws of "majority" and the rule of "fixed status" in cases of doubt.
In the Talmud in Ketubot, the verse is brought that when a person finds a piece of meat in the market, and there are 9 kosher stores and 1 non-kosher one, the law is that we follow the majority.
In the second case, when he bought a piece of meat from a kosher store and then became unsure where he bought it, the law is fixed status, and anything fixed is treated as if it were half-and-half.
And this puzzles me. In my humble opinion, from the standpoint of logical reasoning, the most correct and safest thing would be to go with fixed status always!
For example, if someone is given a cup of water and told: there is a 10 percent chance that this cup is poisoned, but there is a 90 percent chance that this cup is fine and not poisoned.
The sanest and most logical answer from the standpoint of human reason is to determine that there is doubt here. Either it is poisoned or it is not. The same applies to meat in the market.
If so, it would make sense to say based on logic that the norm should be to say "fixed status" and not follow the majority!
So my question is this: assuming that from the standpoint of logic it is most correct to treat it as half-and-half, then in which cases do I prefer the majority over fixed status?
I would be happy if the Rabbi could find an answer or a direction for answering this.
Thanks in advance!
Answer
You are confusing what is most correct with what is safest. Those are two different questions, and really neither is a question at all.
As for what is correct: not every two possibilities are distributed with equal probability. When you step into the street, there is a chance that you will be hit. So why do you step in? Fifty percent that you will be hit, right? No. The chance of being hit is small, and therefore you go down to the street and take the risk. On a road where the risk was 95%, you would not take the risk. You remind me of one of my wife's jokes. Every time there are two possibilities before us, she announces that if there are two possibilities, then the chance of each is 50-50.
As for what is safest: you could argue that even if there is room to bet on the higher probability, when dealing with a prohibition it is like poison, and it is not worth taking the risk. But as I said, even with danger to life we take risks too when we go into the street. Besides, a prohibition is not poison. If it is nullified in the majority or permitted according to Jewish law, then there is no prohibition, and in any case there is no reason to be stringent. This is a full permission, not a mere override. One could analyze this further in light of the law of something that will become permitted, but this is not the place.