Poison, Presumption, and the Limits of Legal Thinking and More Chulin 9-11

Chulin 9

Poison, Presumption, and the Limits of Legal Thinking

Our Gemara on Amud Beis draws a distinction between doubts that affect kashrus versus doubts that affect danger to health. When it comes to kashrus, we follow various legal formulae such as majority, chazakah and other principles. However, if we are unsure of an item’s toxicity, such as water left exposed which may have snake venom in it, we cannot rely on legalistic principles to ensure that it isn’t poisonous.

However, is it really that simple? If a person treats his religious principles and fear of God with due reverence, why would he be less concerned about something being unkosher than about being poisonous? If anything, the opposite is true because if one ingests poison, they die a single death, but if they commit a spiritual transgression, they are dying in the afterlife. In the words of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai on his deathbed (Berachos 28a):

“I cry in fear of heavenly judgment, as the judgment of the heavenly court is unlike the judgment of man. If they were leading me before a flesh and blood king whose life is temporal, who is here today and dead in the grave tomorrow; if he is angry with me, his anger is not eternal and, consequently, his punishment is not eternal; if he incarcerates me, his incarceration is not an eternal incarceration, as I might maintain my hope that I would ultimately be freed. If he kills me, his killing is not for eternity, as there is life after any death that he might decree. Moreover, I am able to appease him with words and even bribe him with money, and even so I would cry when standing before royal judgment. Now that they are leading me before the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He, Who lives and endures forever and all time; if He is angry with me, His anger is eternal; if He incarcerates me, His incarceration is an eternal incarceration; and if He kills me, His killing is for eternity. I am unable to appease Him with words and bribe him with money.”

The Chasam Sofer explains that the key difference is what the Torah allows and forbids. Since the Torah itself permits substances that may be unkosher if they are nullified or subject to certain assumptions, in effect they become kosher. The same law that prohibits can also say it’s permitted. However, poison is poison and will not change due to legalisms.

On the surface, this makes sense. Halacha is part of a legal process but snake venom is part of the physical world. Yet this too is not so simple. The very same Chasam Sofer famously rules that the physical world is subject to Halacha. In a responsa (Shu”t Chasam Sofer, O.C. 14) he cites numerous examples of how a rabbinic halachic decision of declaring the new month, seasons and leap years can even retroactively change physical characteristics such as physical maturity of humans and ripening of fruit. He also famously rules that medical matters for Jewish people cannot be determined by the anatomical and statistical studies of how gentiles are affected (Shu”t YD 175.) He considered Jewish people to be anatomically distinct due to the impact of eating only kosher versus non-kosher foods. To the Chasam Sofer, it seems that the Halacha dictates the reality, not the other way around.

Returning to his original comment on our Gemara, I think we can understand the Chasam Sofer with more nuance. He was not saying that reality is one thing and Halacha is just legalisms. Rather, Halacha is the reality for all things. It just so happens that the Halacha decrees the reality of kashrus on assumptions, and once the assumption states it is permitted then its reality changes and it becomes permitted. However, the Halacha does not make assumptions about health matters and therefore assumptions do not offer absolute protection from the venom that might be in the water, even if it is a 1/1000 chance.

This still begs the question of why. In other words, we can accept that for whatever reason it is the will of God to say that one can rely on legalisms to permit a piece of meat, and even if technically that piece of meat was not kosher it now is kosher because the law permits it. But why did God not make a world where you can use the same assumptions to protect us from physical dangers? Why does God allow more laxity when it comes to observance of His commands than when it comes to safety?

I think the answer is about obedience versus technical considerations of safety, and the appropriate state of mind for each. The main function of a commandment is to establish a connection between man and God by following the covenant. One does not keep Kosher for its own sake or because it is healthy, but rather because God commanded it. Therefore the emphasis is on obedience to the laws and rules, and so those same laws that forbid can also permit. (True, there is a concept that non-kosher foods engender an intrinsic spiritual clogging of the heart, see Shach YD 81:26; the overall idea is about faithfulness to God’s commandments and the legal aspect is stressed.)

However, when it comes to physical and personal safety, autonomy, judgment and self care are paramount. Therefore here the focus is on self protection and health maintenance which comes from agency and purpose. This should not be trusted via legalisms or assumptions but rather via personal investment to safeguard the soul and body granted to us by God, which is tasked to live in the physical world and subject to its rules.

Chulin 10

Dark Corners and Humble Postures: The Spiritual Physics of Tzora’as

Our Gemara on Amud Beis describes an interesting law regarding tzora’as (lesions) that can afflict a house and render it impure, as found in Vayikra (14:35). Even a lesion that ordinarily would be declared impure if it could be identified under normal lighting conditions — if it was in such a place that was dark, there is no requirement to bring in light to clarify.

There are two powerful symbolic ideas seen from this technical halacha. Toldos Yaakov Yosef (Ki Teitzeh) says this reminds us we should not be looking to find fault in others. You see a hint of something in the shadows and you are not supposed to shine a light on it. Leave it be; it’s none of your business what goes on in the hidden corners of someone else’s house or mind. We should seek to judge them favorably.

Shem MiShmuel (Bo) and Parashas Derachim (16) bring out a different idea. The forces of impurity, which are epitomized in the lesions on a house, are attracted to the physical. The more arrogant and the larger the profile a person has, the greater physical footprint he places in this world, and therefore attracts the forces of impurity which derive fuel from the physical. This is why the purification from tzoraas includes the lowly hyssop branch, which physically mimics a humble posture. The unlit, quiet corners of the house, while technically they may have a lesion, are still less vulnerable to the impurities because of their low profile. The lesson is that physicality drives away the spiritual and Godly and attracts the impure forces which come from a vacuum of lack of Godly influence. But humility is the opposite of investment in physicality and therefore makes one less susceptible to the negative impurities.

Chulin 11

Brains Are Overrated: The Talmud’s Theory of Intelligence

Our Gemara on Amud Aleph refers to the kidneys as the part of the body that provide advice and planning. The ancients had a different view of medicine than we do and the ideas that emerge are fascinating.

First let’s start with this shocker: In Biblical Hebrew there is no word for brain! Such a seemingly vital organ simply is not identified. In rabbinic Mishnaic Hebrew the word moach is used to connote brain, but it really is a borrowed term. Moach more correctly translates as marrow, and looking at it that way, the brain is just the marrow of the bone called the skull. The Biblical Hebrew moach is used exclusively as marrow, as in Iyov (21:24.)

The ancients, wisely and appropriately, derived their knowledge of the body based on what they felt occurred. When you get anxious, you feel it in your gut, stomach and sides, and when you are excited you feel it in your heart. This is an intelligent assumption. Indeed, there is new recognition in current medical research regarding the role the gut plays in emotions regulation as well as the hormonal adrenal function of the kidneys. (See https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection and https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21824-kidney)

The Gemara (Shabbos 33b) describes the process of thoughts and emotions:

“The kidneys advise, and the heart understands, and the tongue shapes the voice that emerges from the mouth; still, the mouth completes the formation of the voice.”

What this corresponds to in our understanding of thought, emotions and speech is worthy of study and analysis, but I won’t focus on that now. The most surprising and significant point here is that the brain is given no role. Zero.

At some time in history, the brain begins to be recognized as an organ of thought and also becomes incorporated into rabbinic literature. (We do find the brain, as a thought organ, referened by the Talmudic insult, “it seems to me that this Sage has no brain in his head.” (Yevamos 9a). However, that might be the bare minimum of thought organs so the insult is, along the lines of, “even the brain.” In any case, the prior Gemara excludes the brain from any part of the thought process. For example, Pri Tzaddik (Succos 42) acknowledges the brain as the repository of wisdom but the kidneys as the part that employs analysis and planning in order to use the knowledge properly. (A similar relationship between the brain and kidneys is described in Likkutei Halachos, laws of shaving 4:10.)

In the end, the brain receives no attention in Biblical Hebrew, minimal attention in Rabbinic literature, and in later chassidic thought finally gets some mention but only as a memory bank. What is the lesson and what kind of outlook does this represent? I think this is thoroughly non-western and refreshing perspective. Do we consider a 500 GB memory drive as intelligent? Obviously not! Even if the brain is granted some respect as holding knowledge, it seems the ancients saw it as knowledge without any applied wisdom. To them the brain, if it had any role, held data in the same way the bladder held urine. The key is not the knowledge itself but the process of emotions (heart), analysis and intuition (kidneys) and the ultimate formulation and verbalization of the ideas that comprises human intelligence.

In a sense, brains are overrated because knowledge is only facts. What counts is the personality and the system and process by which the knowledge is applied. This is a combination of emotional, social and computational intelligence, but apparently none of that was believed to occur within the brain itself. Even if we now have an understanding that the brain is responsible for certain forms of analysis and thought and not simply a data storage center, the lesson and the concept is still meaningful. Knowing things and facts are the least important part of intelligence from an ethical and religious point of view. You may need to have a functioning brain in order to become a moral, ethical person, no less than you need to have blood in your arteries and a functioning liver and lungs. However, as important as those organs are, and as important as the brain may be, it is not what makes intellect from a rabbinic point of view. Intellect is the sum of appropriate character and judgment, and not brains nor IQ.