Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Ein Mukdam Ume'uchar Batorah

Rebbe Eliezer famously said that if the Torah were written in order, anyone would be able to be Mechaye Meisim. The question is, this is used to show that the Parshios are not written in order, so assuming Rebbe Eliezer is referring to the Torah not showing the sheimos of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, what does that have to do with the chronological order of the Parshios?

Perhaps it means that this order that we have is based on the Sheimos, and if it would be clear why the order is this way, then the Sheimos would be clear and open, as well.

Another explanation is that he is proving that the Torah is not in chronological order, for if this were the chronological order it would mean that anyone can be Mechaye Meisim, since we see people appearing after the Torah writes that they died.


Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Pesachim 9a

Rashi (Hai Mai) explains that Rava is saying that the Kasha doesn't begin, for even if it would be the nature of the weasel to leave over the meat of a Nefel, the Halacha would be the same. This sounds like in actuality Rava agrees that they don't leave over meat. If so, when we ask from the Braysa of the Cohen who looked over the pit, why don't we answer that the fact is that they don't leave over meat?

The answer to this is that Rashi (Hasam Vadai Uvadai) says that there is no going after Rov. We see from this that to qualify for a Vadai, enough to clear a Vadai Issur, we need a real Vadai and not a Rov. Therefore, the usual nature of the weasel doesn't either help.

If so, when Rashi said that Rava is talking as if the nature would be to leave over, Rava actually disagrees with Reb Zeira even though we say that they don't leave over, and he holds that we must come on to Safek Motzei Midei Safek even when normally they wouldn't leave anything over. He was only stressing the Chiddush that any Safek takes away from a Safek.

Alternatively, we can say that Rashi doesn't mean to say that Rava agrees to this fact, which might have been a conclusion drawn from the Kasha. Rava is arguing on the Terutz and its premise and says that we can even say that they do leave over.

The latter approach works better with what we say at the end, that although they leave over they definitely drag it away. Why couldn't we say that they definitely finish off meat once we are looking for a difference between the case of the Braysa and our Mishna? According to our second approach, that Rava holds that in actuality they do leave over (at least it is common enough not to make a difference), it works out well that we didn't mention that. This is not a Raaya though, because it might be that we are simply aware of the facts, and although they normally do finish it, it is not definite, while they always carry it away.