If you have 9 butcher shops selling kosher meat and 1 selling trief, and you bought a piece of meat but are not sure which store you shopped in, the din of כל קבוע כּמחצה על מחצה tells you to treat it like a 50-50 safeik issur and not rely on rov.
The Pri Megadim has a safeik what the din would be if you bought three pieces of meat from three different stores.
Simple math tells you that 2 of the three pieces must be kosher, and so even if 1 piece is safeik treif, chad b'trei bateil.
On the other hands, in the original case, even though simple math tells you that the odds are 90% that the meat is kosher, the rule of כל קבוע says that you can't use rov to resolve the issue. So too, maybe in this second case you throw out rov as well and it remains a 50-50 safeik on each piece.
First of all, it is clear that "odds are" is inconsistent with kol kavuah, as you indicate. So you cannot rely on odds.
ReplyDeleteThat said, just because kol kavuah ke mechtzah al mechtzah, means that the piece of meat is safeik assur. However, why should that mean that they have the same safeik? Meaning, if one is, in fact, assur, the other one (or two, in the PM"G's case) are muttar. There are cases where you can have a sakeik on two objects, but you know that one has one status and one the other. So they should be mevatel, since if this one is assur, the other two are muttar.
I am sure there is more to it, but those are my thoughts.
Just to elaborate a bit, suppose a piece of shuman and a piece of chelev are put together and mixed up, the classic case of kavuah. They are certainly assur to eat.
DeleteWhat happens if both of them fall into kosher pieces of shuman? Let's say these two fall together with two pieces of vadai kosher shuman, and we now have four. Would we not say the cheilev is battel, since we know that only one of the first two are assur, the other is muttar, plus we have two more muttar pieces?
>>>Would we not say the cheilev is battel, since we know that only one of the first two are assur, the other is muttar, plus we have two more muttar pieces?
DeleteIn your case you can point to 2 pieces of shuman and tell me that they are vaday heter. In the PMG's case, we don't know which piece is which. The only way we know any of the pieces are heter is because 9/10 of the pieces are. But kol kavu'a tells you not to look at it as a 9/10 heter but as a 50-50 heter/issur mixture...
In understand that. My point is, mechtza al mechtza, means it is treated as a safeik issur. But the safeik as to one is not the same safeik as the other. We KNOW that not all three are assur. In fact, we KNOW that two are muttar. For each one, if it is assur, then the other two are muttar.
DeletePut differently, each one is safeik muttar, safeik batel be rov (chad be trei). So they should all be muttar.
Proof for what I say can be brought from Kesubos 15(a):
ReplyDeleteאֶלָּא מִתִּשְׁעָה שְׁרָצִים וּצְפַרְדֵּעַ אֶחָד בֵּינֵיהֶם וְנָגַע בְּאֶחָד מֵהֶן וְאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ בְּאֵיזֶה מֵהֶן נָגַע בִּרְשׁוּת הַיָּחִיד סְפֵיקוֹ טָמֵא בִּרְשׁוּת הָרַבִּים סְפֵיקוֹ טָהוֹר
If you have a case of Kavuah, and it is tumah birshus ha rabbim, we treated it as a safeik and it is muttar.
>>>We KNOW that not all three are assur.
DeleteWe KNOW how? Metziyus? The halacha of kavua says to ignore the metziyus of rov and treat it as 50/50, so here too, ignore the metziyus.
>>>If you have a case of Kavuah, and it is tumah birshus ha rabbim,
Dont know how this is related. Safeik tumah b'reshus harabim is tahor even against a rov.
"We KNOW how? Metziyus? The halacha of kavua says to ignore the metziyus of rov and treat it as 50/50, so here too, ignore the metziyus."
ReplyDeleteThe way we know has nothing to do with rov. The person says he or she bought three pieces of meat at three different butcher shops. There are nine kosher and one treif butcher shop in town. Therefore, two of the pieces are definitely kosher. That has nothing to do with rov.
My point is that kol kavuah is not a challos of a new issur. It means you do not follow rov, and treat the question as a 50/50 safeik. And the gemara in Kesubos explicitly states that that can be even le kula.
Each piece is safeik assur, but that does not mean that each piece has the same safeik. If Piece No. 1 is treif, then we know for sure that Pieces No. 2 and No. 3 are kosher. Same for each one.
Suppose you had three pieces of meat on a plate, and you knew for sure one was treif and two are kosher. That is the classic case of bittul be rov, chad be trei.
Why should the kavuah piece, which is safeik assur, be more chamur than a vadai treif piece?