Saturday 15 January 2011

Mishnah Hallah 4:6 - Literal vs. Conceptual

The crux of the great difficulty in this obscure [as described by Kehatti] is the term D"MAI

How is that term used here?

Literal:
D'mai refers to Ma'aser of Unknown Status because amei haa'aretz were not deemed trustworthy to separate Maaser

However, the catch is, that they WERE trusted to take T'rumah and Hallah! This presents us with some amazing dohaq answers [Kehatti's adjective]

Conceptual
The Term D"MAI is "Mush''elet" it has been borrowed from its proper context and used as a mataphor for something OF UNKNOWN STATUS in the context of Hallah, too. But it's unknowness is circumstantial it is NOT due to any g'zeirah

This understanding of the term "d'mai" as a borrowed term, is presented by Kehatti in the name of the Rambam.

Comment:
Is it any wonder that students of the Rambam would tend to focus upon concepts over literalness in their parsing of texts such as Talmud?

Shalom
RRW

Text:

ד,ו נוטל אדם כדי חלה מעיסה שלא הורמה חלתה, לעשותה בטהרה, להיות מפריש עליה והולך חלת דמאי, עד שתסרח: שחלת דמאי ניטלת מן הטהור על הטמא, ושלא מן המוקף.

No comments: