בבא קמא ע''א
תוספות ד''ה אצטריך
It occurred to me today that תוספות and the last part of the מהגורא בתרא של המהרש''א are dealing with two different questions.
The question of תוספות is what I want to present right now. It is simply this take the חלק שלישי of the גמרא and insert it into חלק שני and you get a question. The חלק השלישי said you get שן and רגל from one פסוק. The second part said you get foot from one and tooth from another פסוק. Now take that one פסוק that we are using for both and ask the same question that the Gemara asked before.
That is now in חלק השלישי we use ושילח for both. Now that is good as far as רגל goes. But what about שן? We used וביער for שן. And we showed it had to be used for שן because of  כאשר יבער. And without that פסוק we would have been justified in using it for רגל. That is an open גמרא. But now insert ושילח instead of וביער. What can you answer now? We don't have anything to prove that ושילח goes on שן.



Appendix:
(1) חלק שלישי של הגמרא is like this.

שאלה: Write ושילח alone and use it for both, for we have two verses showing it can be used for both.

תירוץ: We would think it applies to one alone. The גמרא shows some reason why we would use it for tooth because it has pleasure and so it finds some reason for foot also.

שאלה: We if we would have one we would have to include the other because they are equal in severity.

תירוץ: If we would use it for both we still would not know that the owner is liable when it walked by itself.

(2) חלק שני של הגמרא of the גמרא is like this. אמר מר. We have וביער for שן, and we have proof: כאשר יבער.
שאלה: Why do you need proof? What else could you use it for?

תירוץ: We could use it for רגל.

שאלה: But we already have foot.

תירוץ: We would divide foot into two parts. (We would say the verse for foot ושילח is only for when he sent his animal to graze in someone else's field. We would not know if it walked by itself there and ate. And we would use וביער to tell us that last case.)

שאלה: Now that you have shown you use it for tooth now how do you know that when the animal walked by itself that the owner is liable?
Answer: היקש we make a comparison between foot and tooth. Just like tooth is liable whether he sent it or not so foot is liable in both cases.

בבא קמא ג ע''א One פסוק deals with damages caused by שן.  Another פסוק deals with damages caused by רגל.
We have other  to tell us each verse means as we say it does. We need those extra verses because without them we would say there are two kinds of רגל or two kinds of שן. If he sent the animal there is more reason to make him pay. So we need some reason to say he is liable even if the animal walked by itself. Similarly if the animal ate in a field, there is more reason to make one liable if the roots were eaten. How do we know רביע שלישי ורביעי? Because of a היקש. We compare רגל with שן. In שן we make no distinction between when the owner sent it and when it walked by itself, so also with רגל. And visa versa for שן.

Then a ברייתא uses one פסוק for both רגל and שן, and as for רביע שלישי  we have another פסוק. So what about רביע רביעי? And here we can't use the way the תלמוד accounted for רביע רביעי על ידי היקש because here there is no separate verse for שן. There is one word for both. And to expand רגל into רביע שלישי we needed an extra verse. There is no היקש to tell us to expand into רביע רביעי. The last section of the מהרש''א answers this for the statement that רגל and שן are שקולים in the sense that if you exclude one you have to exclude the other, and if you include one you must include the other.  I am not sure how this helps us. We still know nothing about רביע רביעי.
 Let's go back. We have no היקש between שן ורגל because we are deriving both from the same verse. The only way we got to רביע שלישי was by a special verse. That leaves רביע רביעי empty. There is no היקש between שן ורגל.

On the other hand maybe this works. after all the same logic applies. We don't make any distinction between when the roots were eaten or not by foot. So also with tooth.


5.7.15
בבא קמא ג ע''א אחת פסוק אחד עוסק בנזקים שנגרמו על ידי שן. אחר פסוק אחר עוסק בנזקים שנגרמו על ידי רגל
.
יש לנו אחרים כדי לומר לנו כל פסוק עושה כפי שאנו אומרים שהוא עושה. אנחנו צריכים אותם פסוקים נוספים משום שבלעדיהם היינו אומרים שיש שני סוגים של רגל או שני סוגים של שן. אם הוא שלח את בעלי החיים יש יותר מסיבה לחייב לו לשלם. אז אנחנו צריכים סיבה לומר שהוא עלול אפילו אם בעל החיים הלך בכוחות עצמו. באופן דומה, אם  החיה אכלה בשדה, יש עוד סיבה לעשות אחד חייב אם השורשים נאכלו. איך אנחנו יודעים רביע שלישי ורביעי? בגלל היקש. אנו משווים רגל עם שן. בשן אנחנו לא עושים שום הבחנה בין כאשר הבעלים שלחו אותו וכאשר הוא הלך בעצמו, כך גם עם רגל. ולהיפך לשן.

אז ברייתא משתמשת עם פסוק אחד לשניהם, רגל ושן, וכמו לרביע השלישי יש לנו פסוק אחר. אז מה לגבי רביע רביעי? וכאן אנחנו לא יכולים להשתמש בדרך התלמוד  על ידי היקש, כי כאן אין פסוק נפרד לשן. יש מילה אחת לשניהם. ולהרחיב את הרגל לרביע שלישי שהיינו צריכים פסוק נוסף. אין היקש לספר לנו להתרחב לרביע רביעי. החלק האחרון של מהרש''א מתרץ שרגל ושן הם שקולים במובן זה שאם אתה מוציא אחד אתה צריך להוציא את השני, ואם אתה כולל אחד אתה חייב לכלול את אחר. אני לא בטוח איך זה עוזר לנו. אנחנו עדיין לא יודעים כלום על רביע רביעי
 בואו נחזור. אין לנו היקש בין שן והרגל, כי שן ורגל נובעים מאותו הפסוק. הדרך היחידה שהגענו לרביע שלישי הייתה בפסוק מיוחד. זה משאיר רביע רביעי ריק. אין היקש בין שן ורגל


מצד השני, אולי זה עובד.כל אותו ההיגיון חל. אנחנו לא עושים שום הבחנה בין כאשר השורשים נאכלו או לא ברגל. אז גם עם שן.




Here is a link to my little booklet on subjects like thisIdeas in Shas

 Rambam:  the five difference between the Reason of God and the Reason of Man. [Here "Reason of Man" means  the reason a man would have if he had perfect human reason.] This is not the exact same thing as Kant. With Kant you have limit to perfect reason. And it seems to be a bit different than the Rambam's limits. .




The problem that Kant is addressing is that of Hume. Empirical things we can reason about because we have some way of checking our homework against a background. Physical reality. When we reason about a triangle what background is there to check our work? 


And this seem to me to be a close as one can expect to Kant. For Kant while accepting we have knowledge of a priori things --not based on observation and also not dependent on definitions. But with Kant you have a large area of antimonies where even this kind of reason fails.

So what I am suggesting is a close comparison between the Rambam's five things and Kant's antimonies.


Appendix:
(1)  Aspects of God's knowledge beyond pure reason:
There is no division in his knowledge even when he knows different things. His knowledge does not take something out of the realm of the possible. His knowledge encompasses things that have no end There is no difference in his knowledge before the thing exists and after it comes into being.
Brisk has done very good work in the Rambam and that work is continuing.
The major players in that school are Chaim Soloveitchik, and his direct disciples Baruch Ber  Shimon Shkop. The great book of them all is the master piece of Rav Shach the Avi Ezri.  This I consider to be greater than even the חידושי הרמב''ם. Why? Because even though it was Reb Chaim that opened the door to the Rambam but Rav Shach went in in away that even Reb Chaim could not. Rav Shach  is deeper and clearer. But none of these deal with the Guide for the Perplexed. And I think there is no excuse for that. None whatsoever. If anything the Guide is as deep as the Mishna Torah. Once You have someone of the stature of Rav Abraham Abulfia witting a mystic commentary of the Guide you know something deep is going on there.

Music for the glory of God,

l98


Mathematics

If you have suffered from a certain person the tendency is to find blame in that person's world view. One tends to think that if the system was different evil would be eradicated.

People that have suffered from people that are theists tend to say theism is the problem. If one has suffered from people that believe in a different system, the tendency will be to blame that system. Another example is if people have suffered under the Nazis, then the tendency is to say the belief system of Nazism is the trouble. And this kind of thinking is sometimes justified. After all blaming Nazism for the Holocaust does not seem like much of a stretch. But there are other times that it seems to me that building ones world view on what he sees as negative influences is a dumb way of going about thinking about these things.

Human evil is the type of thing that even people believing in a good system will get the virus of evil. No system is immune. But that does not mean all systems are alike. Nor are all social memes alike. You find one social meme  you think is bad and try to eradicate it you will probably find two that have grown in its stead.

But like Nazism there are certain social memes which are pernicious.

Sometimes one has just found a bad group inside a decent system.
 Personally I go with my parents system, Judaism, but I modify that with a good dose of traditional learning Talmud and keeping Jewish Law. But the basic structure of belief--the world view of my parents of what makes a man into a "mensch" I think they knew more about that than anyone I have ever met.

But their beliefs were not really in accord with Reform  even though we went to a Reform Shul in Hollywood.--a great place--Temple Israel of Hollywood. But teh belif system of my parents was a lot more traditional that official Reform.

To get an idea of what my parents thought and what I think is the proper approach to life I recommend learning Musar. That is the  basic set of medieval books חובות לבבות אורחות צדיקים מסילת ישרים  etc. there are about thirty in all. This is hard reading. The ideas are not hard. It is rather that by reading these books and saying them out loud as you read you get fear of God. And that is hard work. It is not supposed to be light reading.

Music for the glory of God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and of my parents.

b105 

I am upset by the attacks against the USA. Mainly because the USA, the country that I grew up in, was  wholesome and wonderful, and so unrecognizable from what there is today I simply can't comment on it. It is like the first Temple that Solomon built. I am sad it is gone, but there is not much I can do about restoring it.
Mainly I think it was a communist plot. The idea was to undermine American values in universities, and then Americans themselves would destroy it from within. Most people I know don't think the KGB had that kind of influence. But first of all the KGB was highly compartmentalized. And the part of it devoted to disinformation in the USA would not have been known to other department people. Also, I should mention the budget of the KGB for these kind of operations was enormous. And once you have gotten to people in collage and convinced them of the "truths" of socialism, then even when they becomes senators or judges or even the president, they continue with those same policies.
Today the KGB is gone, and I doubt if Russia has the same goals as the USSR. They might want an expanded Russian empire, but I highly doubt if they are interested in the downfall of the USA.
Today the main threat against the USA are Muslims, but they are not the only ones. The Democrats are hard at work undermining the basis of the USA in other ways.