Q&A: A Letter from M.
A Letter from M.
Question
Hello Rabbi,
How are you?
1. Recently I heard that there are new developments regarding cold dark matter. (I don’t remember whether I asked you about this in the past.) First of all, I wanted to ask: a physics professor once told me that there is no such thing, and that he does not believe in something that cannot be seen, even though he has no other explanation for the phenomenon. Aside from that, are there any new developments on the subject, and what is your personal opinion about the whole issue?
2. In tractate Bava Batra, chapter 8, mishnah 5, it says that if someone says, using the language of inheritance, “My son shall not inherit,” then if his brother said nothing it does not take effect; but if he said it using the language of a gift, his words stand. What is the logic here—that if he says it in the language of inheritance it does not work, but in the language of a gift it does?
3. In tractate Eduyot, chapter 7, mishnah 1, there is a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages regarding the redemption of a firstborn donkey that died, and the Kehati explains that according to Rabbi Eliezer, Scripture analogized a firstborn donkey to a human firstborn, while the Sages agree to the analogy only regarding redemption but not regarding liability. I thought that with a textual analogy one cannot divide the laws based on reasoning unless there is an explicit verse?
Answer
1. I am not well-versed in this topic. But someone who does not believe in what he cannot see when he has no other explanation for the phenomenon is apparently not a physicist.
2. As I understand it, this is defined there as stipulating against what is written in the Torah. In practice, it seems that one need not even get that far, since a person cannot bequeath to someone else anyway (except perhaps to someone who is already fit to inherit him, according to the tannaitic dispute of Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka there). Once he dies, the money is no longer his, so how can he bequeath it? A gift is given during his lifetime, and that is within his power to do, because the money is currently his and he can give it to whomever he wishes. And it seems that they needed to invoke stipulating against what is written in the Torah because he wants to determine the inheritance itself while still alive, and that is somewhat like a condition.
3. The rule is that there is no partial textual analogy, and the medieval authorities disagreed (Tosafot and Rashbam; see the Talmudic Encyclopedia, entry “hekkesh”) whether “partial” means only some of the laws, or whether it means only in one direction (to equate A to B but not B to A). Still, there are limitations on analogy based on reasoning as well (if there is something that, logically speaking, is not relevant to analogize). It may be that, according to the Sages, it is not applicable to draw the analogy regarding liability, because in that respect a human being is not comparable to an animal (which is literally property).