Prohibition of nail throwing
Peace and blessings,
I wanted to ask how we should relate to the statement of the Sages in the Book of Mormon that it is forbidden to throw away nails lest a pregnant woman step on them and cause a miscarriage, in light of the logical reality that is apparent in which there is no such harm due to the nails?
As I think, by the way, the wise Rambam ruled yes according to the law (that's what I remember, but I couldn't find the exact source).
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0 Answers
It is not mentioned in the Rambam or in the Shulchan Arba. The Mab brings this up (the source is in Nidah 17).
It is enough to decide whether it is a spiritual or physical danger, like all things that are forbidden because of danger. Although here it seems simply that it is a physical danger, since this is supposed to lead to a miscarriage (and one can hardly interpret that the miscarriage is the result of spiritual matters). If so, then it seems to me that there is no need to fear this in our time, because the Sages apparently acted based on the thinking of their time and were mistaken in this (as in many other things).
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Asks:
In my opinion, we must say that this is a spiritual danger that will result in a miscarriage, because it says there that if the cuticles are moved from their place to another place, they are no longer harmful, and there is seemingly no physical explanation that could suddenly cause the cuticles to stop causing harm because of the change in place… right?
Mmmmmmmm, if this is a physical danger, it's hard for me to understand what they did wrong. They probably saw it happen with their own eyes, and there is no probability of a complex calculation error here for us to say yes.
And if this is a spiritual danger, then do we have the option of saying that they were wrong and that it does not exist today based on our logical thinking, or are these "matters" that only the ignorant and the elders of the generation understand?
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Rabbi:
Regarding the displacement, and without that do you have an explanation for the physical danger that is in the nails? So if you are willing to accept physical danger without explanation, why does the displacement in place undermine that? This is another physical effect that we do not understand.
In my opinion, it's really unnecessary to say that this is a spiritual danger because it's very difficult to evaluate and measure such facts. Do you know how many people see with their own eyes that "alternative medicine" works? To determine something like this requires considerable statistical skill, and the sages didn't really have that.
Beyond that, I'm also not sure they understood spiritual dangers. Where did they get information about such dangers? In prophecy? On second thought, I don't think they really distinguished between spiritual and physical dangers, and in truth, this distinction is not sharp. You can call any danger that you don't understand a "spiritual danger" only because you don't understand what's really going on there. After there is an explanation, it will be a physical danger.
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Asks:
The claim that the Gemara itself sometimes brings: "The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him" is not accepted in this case?
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Rabbi:
If you ask me, then no. I don't see where the Talmudic sages got this "spiritual information". Sometimes you have an explanation that you feel is correct. But here I don't see how such an explanation could exist (not only do I not have such an explanation, but I don't see the possibility that it would exist in others either, except in prophecy. In the time of the Sages, prophecy had already ceased).
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