DaatEmet - Treifos

In the Gemorra Chulin, 53, the laws of a drusa are discussed. They are codified in the Mishneh Torah, hilchos Shchita, and particularly, ch 5 on which we will focus. As DaatEmet points out, the only Torah treifah is a drusah, an animal that has been clawed by a predator beyond the ability to recover. All of the toehr 7 signs and numerous restrictions are Rabinic. However, in the Gemora, it states that a drusah dies because of the poison that the claws of the predator inject into the animal. According to their science, the poison is injected at the withdrawal of the claw. Such a poison is assumed to be part of the physiology of predatory large felines, birds, and there is argument about canines. Thus, the gemorra brings the case where a lion's claw is severed during attack and it never withdraws its claw, concluding that it is not drusah. Two poskim stand out. The Tosfos points out that such a case is not practical because the predator may have attacked many times and we have only witnessed the final attack. The Rambam does not mention the poison at all, but indicates that one might examine the inwardds of the prey to determine if were indeed a drusah. One thing is clear from both of the answers. It is the apparent condition of the animal rather than the theory that determines the halacha.

DaatEmet uses this theory of poison to conclude that there is no such thing in reality as a treifah, since a drusah is depends on poison that does not exist. He successfully refutes the Michtav M'eliyahu zt"l, one the most brilliant rationalist rabanim of modern times, who says that the poison is actually the spoiled remains of prey around the nails, which cause infections. The obvious refutation is that this poison is introduced at penetration, not at retraction. And here hinges the big point. A fundamentalist is now forced to conclude something preposterous to defend the poisnon injection. However, if one looks at the matter, it is clear what happened.

Contemporary science saw that predator claws cause redness, swelling and wasting flesh in the vast majority of cases. Its students concluded that some poison was the culprit and therefore, that it was introduced at retraction, like snake poison or any glandular poison. Halacha concluded similarly, and added legal implications. The Tosfos and Rambam make this clear. The Tosfos refutes the practical implications of the case in the gemorra, saying that it is never possible to know for sure that the animal did not retract its claws. On the contrary, appearance of the diseased inwards would effectively prove that retraction had occurred. The Rambam does not even bring the gemorra's theoretical case and bids the observer to look at the flesh itself in determining whether the animal is drusah or not. IOW, the halacha clearly and definitively goes according to the apparent observation of the layman, not according to the carefully controlled observation someone who seeks a deeper explanation. If you see X, conclude Y. In halacha, this is called "chazaka", and the entire sea of Jewish Law depends it. In fact, the entire sea if Rabinic Law that is designated as "fences" was developed, by and large, to protect the lay observer from these gaps. In the case of treifos, the Rambam clearly states the matter that the chazakas of the rabanim stand, regardless of observed reality.

So as we discuss astronomy, zoology, cryptozoology, biology and the like, keep in mind that the attacks largely fall on the fundamentalist approach, though the rationalists are not entirely immune, as we saw before.