MW13, Unfortunately, those kind of answers bother me, like we are no longer on the madreiga for this or that. Yiftach bdoro kShmuel bdoro. It is sort of an easy way out type of thing when we can’t see something, we say it only happened at XYZ generation to XYZ people. Another thing that bothers me about that approach, is why do Chazal bother talking about it at all if it has no relevance to me whatsoever? Supposedly there is a Maamar Chazal that there were actually 600,000 Neviim throughout history. But we only have 24 books of Nach, because all the others were only for their dor, and were not relevant for later on. Only the ones in Nach are applicable for all time. So why do Chazal talk about things that are not applicable to me? And if you say it is relevant for the future, but the gemara also asks sometimes: Hilchesa limeshicha? In other words when mashiach comes, we will be taught the relevant halachos by the gedolim of that time.
In general, here is another issue to think about. I just learned in Rambam Issurei Biah 12:17 that if a non-Jewish baby gets mixed up with a Jewish baby, we convert both of them, and they are both safek gerim lhalacha. But at the time of Chazal, wouldn’t you think there were big mekubalim everywhere who could look at the babies and see their neshamos and easily tell the difference between a Jewish neshama and a non-Jewish neshama? Vaiz doch ois that in Yiddishkeit, we really don’t decide anything of importance by supernatural means, but we do so only by natural means. And both babies remain safek geirim. Same for Agunos. If a man didn’t return, couldn’t we go to the nearest mekubal and ask if he was still alive? Again, divination, even by great gedolim and mekubalim seems to have no place in halacha.
It would be interesting to know what the halacha would be if a Navi would say this baby is Jewish, or this man died. Would one be able to follow the Navi, or would he have to continue to treat it as a safek?