Avodah Mailing List

Volume 42: Number 6

Tue, 23 Jan 2024

• 1. Shev VeAl TaAseh (Rabbi Meir G. Rabi)
• 2. Quantum of Halachic Time (Akiva Miller)
• 3. Re: Shev VeAl TaAseh (Micha Berger)
• 4. A Mikvah of Tal (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Quantum of Halachic Time (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: Quantum of Halachic Time (Akiva Miller)

What's the difference, if there is one, between not blowing or not hearing
Shofar on the one hand;

and not removing a four cornered garment that is tied with Passul Tzitzis,
on the other hand

and is there any difference between not removing and putting on such a
garment?

If one wears Tefillin that are Passul one has failed to fulfill that
Mitzvah.
There is no prohibition however, there is no violation in wearing such
Tefillin.

Putting on Passul Tefillin is not an active violation
whereass putting on a four cornered garment without Tzitzis is an active
violation of the Aseh

true, from the perspective of not fulfilling the command they are the same
yet there is a greater act of rebelliousness in putting on a non-Tzitzis
adorned four cornered garment than putting on the fake tefillin

and that seems to capture the essence of Shev VeAl TaAseh

Is it possible that keeping on such a garment similarly reflects a greater
act of rebelliousness than passively not taking the Lulav or hearing Shofar?

I have forgotten how this emerged - was it not to do with HaRav Bakshi
Doron bringing a proof for something or other?
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.
R' Micha Berger suggested:

> * PS tangent to share a pet theory:
> I think Chazal had a single quantum of halachic time.
> Meaning that "tokh kedei dibbur" -- the smallest unit of
> time when it comes to intent and speech, and the time it
> takes to walk 4 amos - the smallest unit of time when it
> comes to action, were two ways to approximate the cheileq
> -- the smallest unit of time when calculating time.

This is very confusing. I think you might be contradicting yourself. How
there be one single quantum unit, when you are describing two different
units?:

First you describe a "tokh kedei dibbur" as being the smallest unit of time
when it comes to intent and speech. Then you describe "the time it takes to
walk 4 amos" as being the smallest unit of time when it comes to action.
That makes two different smallests.

And then you say that these two things ways of approximating "the cheileq",
which is the smallest unit of time when calculating time. So which is your
quantum? The two practical measurements, or the cheileq?

IN ANY CASE, we also have a unit of time called a "rega", defined by Rambam
Kiddush Hachodesh 10:1 as 1/76 of a chelek, which makes it MUCH smaller
than any of the above.

Akiva Miller

PS: Additional information:

1 mil = 2000 amos = 18 minutes = 1080 seconds
4 amos (1/500 mil) is therefore 2.16 seconds

1 hour = 3600 seconds = 1080 chalakim
1 chelek is therefore about 3.333 seconds

And so a chelek is more than 54% longer than a keday hiluch arba amos.

.
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On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 08:45:33PM +0200, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:
> What's the difference, if there is one, between not blowing or not hearing
> Shofar on the one hand;
> and not removing a four cornered garment that is tied with Passul Tzitzis,
> on the other hand
> and is there any difference between not removing and putting on such a
> garment?
...
> Is it possible that keeping on such a garment similarly reflects a greater
> act of rebelliousness than passively not taking the Lulav or hearing Shofar?

> I have forgotten how this emerged - was it not to do with HaRav Bakshi
> Doron bringing a proof for something or other?

We started by talking about Chazal allowing wearing 4 kanfos
without tzitzis rather than taking it off in public, on the basis of
kavod haberi'os.

I was saying that perhaps it cannot be generalized to saying that kavod
haberi'os can trump even a deOraisa. That perhaps the rational is more
specicific. That the math is: Since Chazal allow kavod haberi'os to
trump a deRabbanon, and since Chazal have the authority to tell you not
to perform a asei deOraisa besheiv veal ta'aseh, it's only becauase
A > B > C that places kavod haberi'os ahead of this particular asei.

Although Chazal only have that authority when making a gezeirah to
protect a lav deOraisa. (And they aren't abolishing doing the asei in
the nomrla case.) Which would imply that violating kavod haberi'os is
sufficiently a lav to give Chazal that authority here too.

But I questioned further generalization. Say it weren't omission of an
asei besheiv ve'al taaseh, maybe a lav or an active violation of the
lav. Chazal wouldn't have the authority to make a gezeira to ignore the
deOraisa even for a clear-cut lav. So how would we know from the case
of tzitzis that they could let Kavod haBeri'os be a reason to ignore it?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 What we do for ourselves dies with us.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   What we do for others and the world,
Author: Widen Your Tent      remains and is immortal.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                      - Albert Pine

The Mishnah (Makhshirin 6:4) lists the 7 Mashkim: tal, mayim, wine,
[olive] oil, blood, milk, and bee honey.
<https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Makhshirin.6.4>

Notice tal and mayim are different liquids, even though we know both
are H20.

AhS just encountered YD 201:138-139
<https://www.sefaria.org/Arukh_HaShulchan%2C_Yoreh_De'ah.201.138-139>,
which are about miqva'os adulterated by white wine, and how it is hard
to know if the wine has diffused throughout the miqvah yet, or if one
is dunking in a concentration or wine.

That made me wonder -- is a miqvah full of tal kosher? Is tal still a
separate mashleh, like it is for heksheir leqbal tuma'ah? If so, why
discuss white wine? It is far harder to identify where tal would be in
a mixture with mayin, than identifying where wine is.

Also, it would be a diffusion in the other direction. Wine is water with
other things in it. Tal is distilled water, with fewer things in it than
sources of mayim would have. So with wine, it is the non H20 parts of the
grape infusing into the rest of the miqvah, until you have the normal
level of impurities for it all to be considered mayim. But with tal,
it would be the impurities in the kosher part of the miqvah diffusing
into the spot that is full of tal until it no longer has the purity of
distilled water.

Also relevent, the AhS is surprised about the white wine issue, since
it appears the issue is mar'eh mayim, looking like water -- not directly
whether or not it is water. And certainly, tal and mayim look alike.
But lemaaseh white wine is still an issue, despite RYME's surprise.

I also do not know if the distinction is chemistry or simply that the
source of water puts it in a different category. Nafqa mina: Is water
distilled by human beings tal, because it is as pure H20 as dew? Or is
it mayim because it did not "fall" as dew -- the more experiential /
less chemical approach to defining the difference?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 I always give much away,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   and so gather happiness instead of pleasure.
Author: Widen Your Tent              -  Rachel Levin Varnhagen
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 09:48:38PM +0200, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> First you describe a "tokh kedei dibbur" as being the smallest unit of time
> when it comes to intent and speech. Then you describe "the time it takes to
> walk 4 amos" as being the smallest unit of time when it comes to action.
> That makes two different smallests.

> And then you say that these two things ways of approximating "the cheileq",
> which is the smallest unit of time when calculating time. So which is your
> quantum? The two practical measurements, or the cheileq?

The cheileq -- with tokh kedei dibbur and walking 4 amos being two ways
for a person to mentally estimate the cheileq. It's not like they had
wristwatches with cheileq hands...

> IN ANY CASE, we also have a unit of time called a "rega", defined by Rambam
> Kiddush Hachodesh 10:1 as 1/76 of a chelek, which makes it MUCH smaller
> than any of the above.

Except that I don't know of a din that relies on a rega. It may be useful
for the Rambam's math, but our calendar is uses the molad, which was
the average time between lunations at around 400 - 500 CE *as measured to
the nearest cheileq*.

> 1 mil = 2000 amos = 18 minutes = 1080 seconds
> 4 amos (1/500 mil) is therefore 2.16 seconds

Assuming people walk in shul at the same speed they walk to get places.
Similarly for tokh kedei dibbur to be a cheileq, we would need to be
speaking very formally and slowly when greeting our rabbeim.
Both are not only possible, they're likely.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 For a mitzvah is a lamp,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   And the Torah, its light.
Author: Widen Your Tent                      - based on Mishlei 6:2
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

.
I wrote:

> IN ANY CASE, we also have a unit of time called a "rega", defined by
Rambam
> Kiddush Hachodesh 10:1 as 1/76 of a chelek, which makes it MUCH smaller
> than any of the above.

R' Micha Berger responded:

> Except that I don't know of a din that relies on a rega. It
> may be useful for the Rambam's math, but our calendar ...

True, but the Rambam's math was not astronomy-oriented; it was indeed
halacha-oriented: In Kiddush Hachodesh 10:6, Rambam explains that the Beis
Din Hagadol used these more accurate calculations for figuring out when to
add a 13th month to the year. So while I will agree that the Rega is not
relevant to *us*, that doesn't mean it is devoid of halachic significance.

On a topic that is indeed relevant to us, I wrote:

> 1 mil = 2000 amos = 18 minutes = 1080 seconds
> 4 amos (1/500 mil) is therefore 2.16 seconds

To which RMB responded:

> Assuming people walk in shul at the same speed they walk
> to get places.

Thank you! If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that people
might NOT walk 4 amos at the same speed as they walk a whole mil, so the
time it takes to walk those 4 amos might NOT be 1/500 of the time it takes
to walk a mil.

This brings us to a very fundamental question about the very definition of
"the time it takes to walk one mil". Yes, I do realize that I am changing
the subject, because we had previously been talking about four amos, but if
you can't trust the "one mil" calculation then there's no way to translate
it into shorter distances.

It hardly needs to be said (but I'll say it anyway) that "the time it takes
to walk one mil" is relevant to practical halacha in many varied
situations. It defines how long it takes dough to become chometz. It
defines the minimum time of salting meat for kashrus (if I remember
correctly). It defines how far one must travel for minyan, for netilas
yadayim, and other situations. (It MIGHT also be relevant for zmanim
calculations, but if I said that, it might confuse you in the next
paragraphs, so I'm NOT going to say it. :-) )

How long is this shiur, "the time it takes to walk one mil"? Most of us are
familiar with the answer "18 minutes", and many may know of the 22.5 and 24
minutes shitos. Where do these durations come from?

The Gemara Pesachim 93b-94a establishes that the average person walks 40
mil in a day. If one divides the 12 hours (720 minutes) of daytime into 40
units, it is simple to calculate that one walks each mil in an average of
18 minutes. Others hold that these 40 mil were not traversed from sunrise
to sunset, but from alos to tzeis. Therefore, if 4 mil are traversed during
the morning twilight, and another 4 in the evening, then he walked only 32
mil during the middle 720 minutes of sun, and each mil takes 22.5 minutes
to walk. A variant of this calculation reserves *five* mil for each
twilight, leaving 30 in the middle, and each mil ends up at 24 minutes.

Regardless which of those three calculations you prefer, we are forced to
say that there is a 1:40 ratio between the distance one covers in "the time
it takes to walk one mil" and the distance (40 mil) that one covers in a
full day (regardless of how you're going to define "day").

Except that when one walks for a full day, there will inevitably be breaks
for rest, for meals, for davening, and perhaps other purposes. This person
did NOT walk for "a full day"; he walked for some minutes- perhaps even a
couple of hours! - less than that. In order to accurately calculate the
walking speed, one needs an accurate measure of the time actually spent
walking.

If a person actually did cover 40 mil (80,000 amos) in a single day, then
in any typical 18/22.5/24 minute part of that day, he must have walked
somewhat more than 2000 amos. It is only by averaging the entire day
together that one concludes he walked 2000 amos per "keday hiluch mil".

To state it more plainly: In the time it takes an average person to walk
one single mil, he will actually walk MORE than a mil, presuming that he is
actually walking the whole time and not stopping for breaks. Again, it is
only by averaging the entire day together that one concludes he walked one
mil per keday hiluch mil.

(That is the point which I suspect RMB alluded to when he wrote "Assuming
people walk in shul at the same speed they walk to get places." Our
definition of "keday hiluch mil" seems to assume that the person who walks
40 amos in a day does so at the same speed for the whole day, even while
eating and praying.)

In some systems of measurement, time and distance are interchangeable. For
example, one unit of Planck time is how long it takes light to travel one
Planck length. Similarly, keday hiluch mil is, *by* *definition*, the time
it takes an average person to walk one mil.

But I seem to have disproven that.

I suppose it is possible that the Gemara in Pesachim was not bothered by
this calculation. The Mishna and Gemara there are trying to define "derech
rechoka" - how far must one be from Yerushalayim in order to qualify for
Pesach Sheni. The first answer given is the city of Modiin, 15 mil away. I
can easily imagine that for such a distance, Chazal were okay with the idea
that 3/8 of a day's travel *including* breaks was enough to qualify for
Pesach Sheni. But this does not mean that they would have been okay with
including breaks while scaling it down to a four-amos trip!

My guess is that the bottom line might be: How much precision did Chazal
expect from us in these things?

Akiva Miller
.
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