Q&A: We Do Not Suspect That He Already Died, But We Do Suspect That He May Die
We Do Not Suspect That He Already Died, But We Do Suspect That He May Die
Question
Gittin 28b: “We do not suspect that he has died, but we do suspect that he may die.”
This is one of the Talmud’s answers to the contradiction between the Mishnah in Gittin (if the daughter of an Israelite is married to a priest, and her husband went overseas, she may continue eating terumah on the presumption that he is alive) and the baraita that says, “This is your bill of divorce one hour before my death” — she is immediately forbidden to eat terumah.
What is the logical sense of this answer?
After all, if I am concerned that he may die within the next hour, then once that hour has passed shouldn’t I already have to be concerned that he died?
Answer
The logic is apparently not probabilistic but halakhic. The reasoning may be as follows: we do suspect that he may die, because it is clear that at the present moment, that person will certainly die at some point, so one cannot create a presumption that a person will not die in the future. Consequently, at every moment there is a concern that he may die. But if I am situated at some given moment, there is no necessity that he died at some point in the past. Maybe he will die in the future. But if he did not die in the past, he certainly will die in the future.
Associatively, this reminds me a bit of the difference between a half-infinite interval extending backward and one extending forward. Several medieval authorities bring a proof that the age of the world is finite, and therefore that it was created by something/someone, since if it were infinitely old it could not have reached the present moment. That would take an infinite amount of time. I was asked about this in the past, and I answered that the question is based on a misunderstanding of the concept of infinity. When looking backward, one can say that the world has existed for an infinite amount of time, meaning that it existed at every moment of time that ever was. There is no moment in time at which the world did not exist. But when looking forward, one cannot say that we start at minus infinity and advance toward the present moment. I have not thought enough about this association, or why exactly it came to mind. I am writing it here for your consideration.