Caveat enterers!

This past Yud Shvat I made a hachlata (as prompted by my mashpia) to refrain from any sort of untznius posting. Thus far I have stayed on the straight and narrow, but tonight that all comes to an end, because tonight it's time for Klalei Sfeik Sfeikah 2-9! I can tell you're all wildly excited. That's right folks. We're in for a fabulous evening's apocalypse, complete with omelets for everybody!

A warning for those readers of ours who are in possession of a youthful persuasion: the Sifsei Kohen does get a little, shall we say, "explicit", so if you're reading this (aren't you up past your bedtime anyway?) and not of the age of majority then you might wish to reconsider.

All right, on with the show!

A sfek sfekah is when there are two sfekos, two doubts regarding something. One of the classic cases regards a man who comes to his local orthodox beis din and declares, "My wife has had relations with a man other than me!" Upon finding this to be true, does the beis din immediately take her out to killing fields? Of course not.

Who said she had these relations when she was married? And even if she did have them while in a state of marriage, maybe she was raped? This is a case of sfek sfekah, because neither condition is dependent on the other. Even if she wasn't raped (i.e. it was consensual), who says it happened after she was married?

Another classic case of sfek sfekah is when there is a kosher hen and a possibly-kosher hen with one egg among them. (A possibly-kosher hen is one that might be a treifah). The question is, of course, is the egg kosher?

The first safek is that the egg might have come from the kosher hen; even if it didn't, who says that the other chicken isn't in fact kosher?

The question is, since one of the sfekos is on a d'oraisa, why don't we say sfeka d'oraisa l'chumrah? In English, since there's a possible Torah prohibition (if the bird is in fact not kosher), why don't we follow the dictum that whenever there's a possible Torah prohibition we rule stringently?

We answer that in this case, when we look at the egg (whose status we're examining), we find that after the first safek we can assume that the egg is from the kosher chicken. And even if it's not, maybe the other chicken is really kosher anyway?

The same principle can be found in a case where some blood is found on a sheet following marital cord (the opposite of discord, right?). Actually, if I recall correctly, the loshon in the Shach is that a husband and wife were doing there thing.

Once again, there are two sfekos here. Who says the blood is from the woman? Maybe the guy was scratched?And even if the blood is of female origin, who says it's prohibited niddah blood (from the womb)? Perhaps it's from one of the corridors?

By the way, why is a woman every a niddah? After all, it's a always a safek! Well yes, that's true, but it's safek d'oraisa l'chumra. Regardless, in the above case, we can say the same thing as the chickens. We start with the the assumption that there's no problem, that the blood came from the hubbie. And even if it didn't, maybe it was non-niddah blood.

So how about if a possibly-treif chicken gets mixed up with a bunch of kosher chickens? Is there a sfek sfekah, because who says you've got that chicken, and even if this is it, who says it's treif anyway?

Actually, we rule that there is no sfek sfekah here. The reason is that we there are two different sfekos here, one in the body of the chicken itself (whether it itself is treif or not) and one in the mixture (whether you've got the possibly-treif one or not). This is called safek echad b'guf v'safek echad b'taaruvos, and it's not a sfek sfekah. A true sfek sfekah always is on one body, for example one egg, or one woman.

The mateh binyamin does permit this chicken, in fact, in a case where the safek was only recognized later, for example where the chicken's being a safek treifah was only revealed after it had been mixed up. The Shach rules that we can rely on this heter in a case of hefsed merubah (large financial loss) or else when the food is needed for a seudas mitzvah.

How about one last bonus case? It's called "tolin" and it only applies in a public domain.

What if there's two paths and one of those paths has a dead body buried underneath it. Problem is, we don't know which path it is. If someone walks on either of those paths he doesn't become tameh because he can always say that the other path is the impure one.

And what if two people walk on those paths? If they come before a rabbi separately, then they are both pure, because both can say that the other guy is the impure one. However, if they come together, then they're both impure, because one of them is certainly impure, and the safek is only which one it is. Since we say safek d'oraisa l'chumra, they're both impure.

Well, that was fun, I sure hope you all enjoyed it.