The Majority Rule
“If The Majority Are Israelites…”
(Bava Metzia 24a-b)
Our daf discusses a situation in which one found meat where the majority of those that slaughter and sell are Israelites; based on the rule of following the majority, one may assume that the meat originated from a kosher store.
Volume of Meat
Chayyei Odom (in his Binas Odom commentary, Sha’ar Ha’kavua 16) rules that the determining factor is not the number of butcher shops but the amount of meat. If the single non-kosher butcher shop produces a large volume of meat more than equal to all the other – let’s say nine butcher shops combined – then he rules that one is to assume that the meat one might find in the street originated in the non-kosher butcher shop, and as such is not fit for consumption.
Volume Sold
Beis Ephraim (Yoreh De’ah 40, and cited by Pischei Teshuva 110: sk2), modifies this position, arguing that the significant factor is not the amount of meat produced or contained in the shops but the amount sold [on the day the meat was found]. The fact that the non-kosher butcher shop has a large quantity of meat frozen on ice is irrelevant because the meat that wasn’t sold is certainly not the meat found on the street.
Number of Shops
Chavas Da’as (Yoreh De’ah 63:sk2, and infra 110:sk3) disagrees, and maintains that the significant factor is the number of shops, not the quantity of meat. He adduces proof to his view from the Mishna (Machshirim 2:8), which rules that where one found a lost object in a city in which fifty percent or more of the inhabitants are Israelites, the finder is duty bound to make every effort to restore the object to its rightful owner.
Relative Wealth
Interestingly, his ruling was based on an assumption that the idolaters, on the whole, are wealthier than the Israelites, notwithstanding the possible situation where the Israelites constitute more than 50 percent of the city’s populace. Thus, we are to assume that the idolaters possess more than fifty percent of the wealth.
Consequently, he argues that if the quantity of meat is the determining factor [as Chayyei Odom asserts], then in the case of found money or any other object the determining factor should be the total amount of wealth possessed by each group, not the number of people in each group. Therefore, it follows that the finder should be able to assume that an idolater lost the money, even if more than fifty percent of the town’s populace is Israelites.
Rich and Poor Alike
Chayyei Odom, in answer to this question, explains that the amount of money one owns is not significant in the case of aveidah, a lost object, because people do not carry all their money with them in the street, and one who is poor very often has the same amount of money in his pocket as one who is rich.
