[Avodah] microphones on shabbat

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, March 19, 2007 9:22 am, R Harry Maryles wrote:
:   Not only that but even sparks that may be generated by a motor  are not
: considred Aish since they have no substance to them and in any case it is a
: Davar She’Eino Miskavin and the is no Psik Reisha. Such sparks are no worse
: than static sparks that are generated by certain activity on Shabbos.

I have been out of the Electical Engineering world for over a couple of
decades, so I invite RDr Bannet to correct me but IIRC....

I think that for many motors, the sparks are pesiq reishei. For most cheap
motors, unless they get their RPM rate off the voltage cycle of the AC line,
they have brushes and therefore spark quite frequently.

I am not sure why halachic arguments like pesiq reishei or davar she'eino
miskavein would be relevant, if you deny their mamashus or compare them to
static electric sparks. It sounds like getting things down to heter by piling
sefeiqos, rather than a solid sevara from any one clear matir.

:   RSZA also mentions another reason for Assuring the use of electricity, the
: idea of a Shvus.

RSMashbaum:
: In his most recent weekly shiur, Rav Asher Zelig Weiss expressed himself
: about electricity in almost exactly the same terms as RMB does here: the
: prohibition was determined first, and then the poskim looked around for
: a category to fit it into.

: He cited a Yerushalmi (which unfortunately I cannot quote pefectly
: accurately) in which chazal categorized actions forbidden on Shabbat;
: any activity they knew, apparently intuitively,  was prohibited which
: they could not fit into one of the other categories was classified as
: makeh-b'patish....

Notice that both RSZA and RAZW are using sevaros specific to hilkhos Shabbos.

On Sat, March 17, 2007 11:05 pm, Rich, R Joel wrote:
: I have heard him say the same thing but I think Micha's point iiuc was
: that this is a more general phenomena....

Excactly. I am arguing this unity with the gestalt of halakhah, so that you
can know what's right even when you can't articulate it, is the very quality
is takes to be among the gedolei haposeqim.

As RDr Moshe Koppel would put it, the knowledge of a language of the native
speaker or one of its poets. You just know what sounds right. It goes beyond
what an immigrant can do through applying rules from a grammar book.

To my mind, this is the difference between binah, the ability livnos and to
distinguish bein (as RSRH puts it), deductive and inductive logic, and da'as.

Back in v9n72 <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol09/v09n072.shtml#01> RYGB
posted his Elu ve'Elu essay. On paragraph read:
> The greatest Poskim became one with the Torah itself, and their capacity
> to pasken transcended even the Halachic process itself. Once the Chasam
> Sofer zt"l's son, the Ksav Sofer zt"l, felt that his father's proofs in
> a certain teshuva were questionable. He asked his father, therefore,
> about the validity of the resultant psak. The Chasam Sofer responded
> that in hispiskei halacha, the primary determining factor was his sense
> of what the psak should be. Specific proofs were secondary in importance
> (Nefesh HaRav p. 42. See Eitz Chaim p. 430 for a similar statement by
> HaGaon HaRav Chaim of Volozhin zt"l). Psak Halacha

In that and subsequent discussion we discussed this very notion. RRW
associated it with the Rambam's use of "nir'eh li", and why it makes the
statement HARDER to dispute, not less.

It is that idea I'm trying to convey, not something specific to shevus or
melakhah.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter