Parshas Re'eh 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- Aug 7
- 3 min read
חולין דף צה. "תשע חנויות"
If there are 9 stores in town that sell kosher meat and one store that sells non-kosher meat, and a piece of meat is found in רשות הרבים, the rule is כל דפריש מרובה פריש. We assume this meat came from the רוב, the kosher stores. [בינת אדם שער הקבוע אות טז'] חכמת אדם says, the deciding factor is not the number of stores, but the amount of meat in the stores. So, if in the 9 kosher stores each only had 1 בהמה, but the non-kosher store had 10 בהמות, we would follow the 1 non-kosher store. The [ס' סג,ס"ק ב'] חוות דעת also discusses this חקירה and says, one could say not like the חיי אדם, but rather the amount of stores is the deciding factor regardless of the amount of בשר in each location. One of his proofs is from the halacha [ב"מ כד]: if one finds an אבידה in a city that is רוב ישראלים he must be מכריז. If it is רוב עכו"ם he does not need to be מכריז. The חוות דעת says, לכאורה why don’t we take into consideration that even though the goyim are the minority, they have more assets than the ישראלים, which would mean that most of the items in the city originate from goyim? So, why do we care that the ישראלים are the majority of people, if the origin of this lost item is probably from the goyim? So we see, that the origin of the money is not the determining factor, but rather the amount of people. So too by us, it is the amount of stores, not the amount of בשר that we follow. The חכמת אדם [לעיל] brings this proof of the חוות דעת and disagrees with the comparison. Because when one leaves his house he doesn’t take all his belongings with him and when an אבידה is found in the street we don’t take into consideration the items left behind in the house, just those that are taken out to ר"ה. The חיי אדם says he met the חוות דעת personally and asked him this קשיא and he was שתק. The חיי אדם says further, by the אבידה we are not being דן on the item itself, but from who it fell. משא"כ by us, we are being דן the actual בשר, so we should follow the amount of בשר. He concludes: ועדיין הדבר צריך תלמוד.
The [ב"ב צג:] רש"ש says, the ספר יהגה חכמה quotes him as saying this שאלה seems to be a מחלוקת תנאים from the following braisa: If one sells garden seeds that are never eaten but only used for planting, if the לוקח plants them and nothing grows, the מוכר is חייב באחריותן. If he sold flaxseed (זרע פשטן) which is sometimes eaten, if they don’t grow, the מוכר is not responsible. ר' יוסי says, the מוכר must reimburse the לוקח because רוב flaxseed is used for planting. "אמרו לו" (they said to him) the seller is not responsible, since many people purchase flaxseed for other purposes. The רשב"ם explains their position: while it is true that most flaxseed that is purchased is used for planting, however, for every 1 farmer that buys 10 סאה for planting, there are 100 people that purchase a total of 1 סאה for eating and medicine. So, they hold we follow the majority of people, while ר' יוסי holds we follow the majority of the item (flaxseed). The רש"ש says, while he did say this, he retracts, because maybe the שיטה of the "אמרו לו" is not that רוב people is עדיף, but rather it’s also a רוב. So we have 2 majorities, the רוב of flaxseed and the רוב אנשים, so they should cancel each other out and המע"ה.