I received a response to the question I sent in a few days ago about the Rashba's m'halach in the sugya here, from R' Dovid Bloom -- thank you for that. But I believe I was unclear in my question, so I will try again.
First off, I did not mean to get held up on the fact that Rashi and the Rashba learn differently. In any event, the Yam shel Shlomo to Chullin 112a (where this sugya also appears) says explicitly that they learn differently. The Beis Yosef in Siman 71 also brings the two mahalchim. Tosfos on Chullin 96b indeed learns that "tzli" means previously roasted, not "hot," as the Rashba learns.
But in any event, my question is on the mahalach of the Rashba, and whomever else we will say learns like him. My question is asking what the chiddush of the gemara is, not what the chiddush of the Rashba is. When the gemara says that hadacha is sufficient if the chicken is "chai," meaning cold, but not if it is "tzli," meaning hot, and that "tzli" needs k'lipa -- what is the chiddush in that? Isn't it obvious that hadacha could not be sufficient -- after all, the item is hot? What is the logic that I could have thought that the chiluk between a small or large amount of salt could allow for requiring only hadacha in an item that is hot? With NO salt at all, it requires at least k'lipa, like any combination between one hot item and one cold item (even if the cold is on bottom and wins over the top, like Shmuel, whose shita we are in.) Would a small amount of salt somehow change the absorbing ability of a hot item, to make it absorb less, and only require hadacha?
Thank you again,
Danny
Danny Louis,
Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel
1. Danny, I agree that it is not a Chidush that if it is hot it requires Kelipah. However, the Gemara does not always have to say Chidushim. The Gemara does sometimes say obvious Halachos, but if it would not say them, it is possible that we would make a mistake. So if the Gemara here would have just said, "v'Hani Mili Chai" and left it at that, we might have thought, according to the Rashba's approach, that a hot chicken becomes totally forbidden and Kelipah is not sufficient.
2. Your argument might be a support for those who differ with the Rashba. They can argue that it works better to say that Tzli means it has been roasted but is now cold, because that means that the Gemara is saying more of a Chidush when it states "Aval Tzli Ba'i Kelipah" -- that even something which is now cold requires Kelipah. However, even though this Diyuk may represent an advantage for those who disagree with the Rashba, it still does not represent a refutal of the Rashba. One often finds in disputes between the Rishonim that a certain Diyuk in one part of the Gemara might go better according to this Rishon, but the support is not conclusive, and then the other Rishon may have a support from another part of the Gemara.
3. In addition we have a rule that an Amora must explain himself more clearly than a Tana (see Rashi to Gitin 4a, DH Iy, and Tosfos to Beitzah 25a, DH Kan) and he must not be too brief with his words.
4. The Shach (Yoreh Deah 91:21) writes that the Yam Shel Shlomo wrote that Rashi and Rashba differ only because he looked at the words of Rashi in Chulin and not at Rashi in Pesachim. The Shach writes that there are three approaches in the Sugya and that Tosfos in Chulin does not learn like Rashi and the Rashba.
Yasher Koach,
Dovid Bloom