Monday 27 December 2010

Pick Your Parshanut Preferences 3 - A "shver" Rambam

What is YOUR preferred approach to explaining this "shver" Rambam in Hilchot Bassar Bechalav [Hilchot Ma'achalot Assurot 9:1,2 text below]

The Rambam seems to be forced to explain the absence of the term eating [Achila] in conjunction with the prohibition of dairy and meat.

What's Bothering the Rambam?

Traditional Technical Approach

The Lechem Mishneh says that the Rambam has a conundrum. Namely eating triggers malqut, but malkqut is NOT explicitly in the Torah. And anything derived by "middot" - even when construed as d'oraitto - does NOT trigger malqut - because of ein onshin min haddin

Perforce the Rambam punted to using incest with a "bat" as paradigmatic of NOT being "Min Haddin" but as tantamount to explicitly written [giluy milta b'alma]

Summary:

What's bothering the Rambam is Malqut for eating due to the absence of the verb in the text

And so his resolution is: Despite the absence of the explicit verb, achilah is construed AS IF it
Were present in the original text.


Modern Sociological Approach

The Rambam was a rationalist. He was stuck trying to convince his audience that the prohibition of eating was implicit in "lo t'vasheil". In order to make his point sound more reasonable, he used the obvious paradigm of the prohibition of incest with a daughter to show how logical this case was, too.

Summary:

What's bothering the Rambam is how to make a "kvetchy" implication sound rational

And so his resolution is: To say that this is comparable to a more obviously rational case.

Shalom
RRW

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הלכות מאכלות אסורות פרק ט

א בשר בחלב
--אסור לבשלו ואסור לאוכלו מן התורה, ואסור בהניה; וקוברין אותו, ואפרו אסור כאפר כל הנקברין. ומשיבשל משניהם כזית--לוקה, שנאמר "לא תבשל גדי, בחלב אימו" (שמות כג,יט; שמות לד,כו; דברים יד,כא). וכן האוכל כזית משניהם, מן הבשר והחלב שנתבשלו כאחד--לוקה, ואף על פי שלא בישל.

[ב] לא שתק הכתוב מלאסור האכילה אלא מפני שאסר הבישול--כלומר ואפילו בישולו אסור, ואין צריך לומר אכילתו: כמו ששתק מלאסור הבת, מאחר שאסר בת הבת.

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