For Matanos L’evyonim donations Click Here

Newly discovered eggs

Question:

Just last week they discovered a 1,000 year old egg in Israel.
Before that they discovered a 1,700 year egg in England.
They also found a basket of 2,500 year old eggs in China.
In all of the pictures, the eggs look the same size, like a small or medium egg of today.
We all like to be machmir in shiurim, but why doesn’t this prove that the smaller shiur is actually the correct one.
As for the discrepancy in measuring the mikvah, found by the Tzlach and the Gra, and the Chazon Ish and Rav Moshe, all of whom used the finger measuring method, there must be some other explanation.
Some now claim that the Grach Noeh was wrong because of the discovery of coins which are smaller than the size and weight he had estimated according to the Rambam.

 

Answer:

Thank you for your question.

You are bringing up an interesting point, however there are a number of reasons why we can’t establish the halacha from this. First of all, you can not establish the size of the egg from a picture that you see, because you can’t accurately measure from a picture. Secondly, the Rambam (Hilchos Shabbos 5-8) says that what is referred to as a egg mean a medium size egg of a chicken. There are thousands of different types of birds, who lay eggs of different sizes, how do you know that this egg is from the correct type of bird? True this is their claim, but will we establish halacha as a result? Besides even if it were to be an egg of a chicken, we still can not know that this one egg that was found is indeed the medium size egg of that time.

Regarding establishing the halacha, the way halacha is established is through the halachik process, via bringing proofs from gemoras and other sources. Bringing proof from artifacts is not conclusive, because researchers have found places near the Makom Hamikdash which would support both opinions.  For example, the width of the doors to the Har Habayis coincide with the shiur of the Chazon Ish,

 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *