Q&A: Majority
Majority
Question
Hello Rabbi, I wanted to ask how one defines a unit about which the rule of majority can be applied. That is, if there is impurity in a neighborhood, I am not concerned about walking in the neighborhood because most of the neighborhood is pure. But if instead of defining the unit as the “neighborhood,” I were to define it as the “street,” then most of the street would in fact be impure and it would be forbidden to walk there. Or even if most of the street were pure, if I were to define one square meter as a unit, then most of that square meter would be impure and it would be forbidden to walk there, and so on. So how can one know how to define the unit with respect to which majority is judged? Have a kosher and joyful Passover
Answer
I don’t see the problem. What determines it is the area about which you are in doubt. If you know that the impurity is located on a certain street, then that is the relevant area. If it is in the neighborhood or the city, then those are the relevant areas.
Discussion on Answer
I’ll give a different example in which what you said seemingly wouldn’t help. We are stringent not to eat leavened food after Passover because we are concerned that the sale to the gentile was not done properly. Suppose that in the month of Sivan most leavened products have already been made after Passover, so does that permit me to drink beer even though most beers still have not yet been newly produced? And even if most beers are already produced after Passover, the specific company of this beer still has most of its stock from before Passover—would it be permitted to drink the beer?
In other words, the doubtful item is part of some broader category about which one could apply the rule of majority. The question is: into which category do I place the item under discussion?
First of all, this is a nonsense stringency. If one permits selling, it cannot be that one then does not eat it. If you are concerned, then don’t sell—burn it instead; otherwise you violate the Torah prohibition of “it shall not be seen.” You’re worried about the rabbinic prohibition of leavened food that remained over Passover, but you’re not worried about the Torah prohibition of “it shall not be seen”?!
But even if there were room for concern, there is no problem here for exactly the same reason I gave earlier. If you want to drink beer, check the majority regarding beer, and if there is information about the specific beer you’re interested in, check that. The principle is exactly the same: whatever is included in the doubt determines the space and the framework for the discussion.
There are two particularly “famous” passages in Rashash.
One is on the Talmud in Bava Metzia 107, “Just as your coming into the world was without sin, so too your leaving the world is without sin,” on which Rashash commented: “From here there is some refutation of those who hold the doctrine of reincarnation” (for if so, he was reincarnated to repair a sin in his hand). And this stirred the Hasidim to protest.
And the second is on the Talmud in Ketubot 14: “And according to what I wrote, it would seem to me that if in one kosher shop there were 40 square pieces and 10 triangular ones, and in the non-kosher shop there were only 20 pieces and all of them triangular, and a triangular piece was found—it is kosher. And this matter still requires further study, and I will not elaborate here.” And this stirred the learners to analyze it.
I didn’t understand the connection to the first saying. The second sounds completely unreasonable.
He probably wrote this in line with his view that an immediately available majority is not probabilistic. I agree that it is not probabilistic and do not agree with the conclusion. It seems to me that even according to his conclusion in explaining an immediately available majority (that it is about a majority of aspects), this does not fit.
(The quote is from Rashash, Strashun.) The first saying is unrelated. The second really does sound completely unreasonable to me too (because one should always use all relevant information that makes it possible to narrow the sample space, as you answered above), but there are those who maintain his view, and in any case it seems to me that the existing discussion surrounding Rashash’s words there would help the questioner (Moti).
Ah, I thought it was Rabbi Shimon Shkop. 🙂
By the way, specifically in the case of impurity, the laws of majority are not simple, because the laws of doubt there are different.