Our Gemara on Amud Aleph addresses accidental sin and what to do next, such as becoming ritually impure in the Temple courtyard:
If one, unaware of his impurity or location, exits via a longer route when a shorter one was available, he’s liable for a sliding-scale offering. If he takes the shortest route, he’s exempt.
Rava clarifies: “Shortest route” doesn’t mean fastest; one is exempt even walking heel-to-toe all day, if it’s the most direct path.
This resonates metaphorically: slow progress in the right direction trumps swift movement in the wrong one. The Gemara continues:
Rava asks: If one tarries briefly, less than the time to bow down, leaves, then tarries again briefly, do these combine to make him liable if the total equals bowing time?
The Gemara challenges: Doesn’t Rava’s heel-to-toe ruling, implying intermittent tarrying, resolve this? It answers: No, that was continuous motion, albeit slow. Rava’s dilemma concerns stopping entirely, but for brief moments.
The Chasam Sofer explains: The questioner assumed Rava’s slow-walking ruling included pauses, but the response clarified it was continuous motion.
This may relate to Zeno’s Arrow Paradox, per Aristotle (Physics VI:9, 239b5):
If everything is at rest in an instant, and a moving object occupies a space at each instant, the arrow is motionless. If all instants are the same or continuous, motion exists.
According to Zeno, motion is impossible because at each moment there is one stationary instant. How then does one go from one place to another? Either you are here or there.
According to most scholars, Aristotle rejects Zeno in the following way: He views motion as continuous, not a series of still instants. Halacha too may similarly treat motion or time as a process, not discrete moments, but perhaps the hava amina as described by the Chasam Sofer held more of Zeno’s perspective.
In a related manner, Ritva (Nedarim 87a) suggests time is quantized. The Gemara rules:
If one rends his garment for an ill relative who faints, seeming dead, but dies after the time to say a short phrase, the rending doesn’t count. If within the time of toch kdei dibbur, it’s continuous, fulfilling the obligation.
Ritva holds toch kdei dibbur (time to greet a rabbi) isn’t just a rabbinic decree but how time is measured. The rending and death occur in the “same time,” even if chronologically sequential. It is as if legally we decided to measure temperatures by rounding off to one decimal. In that case 98.62 and 98.64 would both legally be the same temperature of to 98.6°F.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation
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Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, LCSW-R, LMFT, DHL is a psychotherapist who works with high conflict couples and families. He can be reached via email at simchafeuerman@gmail.com