[Avodah] Is it ossur to have a good time?

[Jonathan Baker]

> From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] Is having a good time ossur
> To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org
> Message-ID: <20080410213557.GA4032 at aishdas.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:42:40AM -0400, Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> : If you read Rishonim and  omit Acharonim the  issurim  on Sefirah seem
> : limitted to:
> :    1. Taspores 2. nissu'in  3. some kind of mleacha 

> ...
> :> The flipside of this is that RYBS would assur parties during omer or
> :> the three weeks even without music.
 
> : WADR to RYBS this is sourcesless in Rishonim.  The point of sefirah is
> : MITkTZAS aveilus. the Rav tried to morph it into FULL_SCALE aveilus.  See
> : both Tur and KItsar SA  for the  list of miktzas
 
> I also feel he shoehorned things that didn't really match, which is why
> I will open with a request that one of RYBS's chassidim field this one.
 
> But obviously he didn't give a shiur on the subject without lengthy
> background. Rashei peraqim: RYBS defines aveilus as only coming in three
> flavors: shiv'ah, sheloshim, and shanah. And thus, miqtzas aveilus would
> be a term for the least level. Same as his model for the differences
> between bein hametzarim, the 9 days, and 9 beAv itself.

Where is this shiur?  As you summarize it, it seems to go against other
ideas I've heard attributed to RYBS, such as "hashkafah is derived from
examining the halacha, it doesn't drive halacha."

Does the halacha (Rishonic, or even before the post-Rupture chumra
machine, and absent Brisker chumras that RYBS held for himself)
really support that?  Do the known issurim during sefirah actually
correspond to the known issurim of shanah?

Or is he defining Miktzas, and then using his personal definition to
apply the halachos of real aveilus back onto the semi-chol-hamoed of
Sefirah?  Clearly whatever minhagim the Rishonim had about it post-1096
would have sufficed for being "miktzas aveilus", as defined by themselves.

If the latter, it would seem like he's defining a hashkafic point (my
idiosyncratic definition of miktzas aveilus) and then using that to
quantify halachos.  Which is an apparent setirah to the other idea above.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com