[Avodah] YT Sheini Shell Golah and the Internet

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> Taking a temperature for piryah verivyah, where the reason doesn't
> apply (goods for sale are not measured by temperature)

The reason for the issur on measuring has nothing to do with goods
for sale. It's not a shvus against writing, it's just uvdin dechol
and zilzul shabbos. Measuring for a mitzvah is specifically allowed,
but so is stam measuring for no purpose at all; the only thing that is
not allowed is measuring for some specific non-mitzvah purpose. So it's
not like dancing at all. Allowing it for a mitzvah isn't a "modern"
(i.e. rishonic) kulah, it's an explicit mishna.

[Email #2. -mi]

Micha Berger wrote:
> :                          ... I assume the resolution, should it ch"v
> : be necessary, will be that this is the day that the Sanhedrin decreed
> : will be Rosh Chodesh, and whether they were wise to have done so is
> : irrelevant.  "Atem afilu mezidim".

> But this isn't as much a question of when is Rosh Chodesh as much as
> which chodesh it's the rosh of.  Is there a maqor that beis din can
> be meizidim on ibbur hashanah too? It is all one thing -- BD is
> meqadeish a particular month (month 13 or month 1)?

I should have stuck with my first draft, which was "...the day that
the Sanhedrin decreed will be Pesach...". Ibbur hashana is even more
in BD's hands than is kiddush hachodesh. KhCh is not *meant* to be
a judgement call; in the normal course of events they hear the eidim,
find them trustworthy or not, and decide accordingly. The power they
have to ignore or manipulate eidim is to be used very sparingly if
at all. I don't think "afilu mezidim" means that BD has the *right*
to deliberately mess with Rosh Chodesh, but that they have the *power*;
if they did it they were wrong, but Rosh Chodesh is still whenever they
said it is. However with ibbur hashana it is very much a judgement
call; BD have various criteria they look at, and *they* *decide* whether
an extra month is called for or not. So if they got that wrong, kol
shekein that we have to follow them anyway. At least so it seems to me.

[Email #3. -mi]

rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com wrote:
> RZS
>> in Beitza 4b.  "Sometimes the government might make a decree, and
>> you will come to get confused", i.e. if Torah is suppressed everyone
>> who is capable of doing his own calculations will have to do so, and
>> someone might make a mistake.

> This begs the question:

I don't think that's what you meant to say. Perhaps you meant that it
invites the question

> Why can't a mistake be made in EY itself?
> And therefore why not 2 days there?

You could as easily ask, why is two days enough? Why not a day earlier
too, in case people will add a day instead of dropping one? When the only
failure mode was that the previous month could be either 29 or 30 days,
and we didn't know which, there were only two days on which yomtov could
possibly be; but when the failure mode is that we might miscalculate, the
error could go in either direction. And what if we add or drop two days?
Ein ladavar sof! (OK, if the error got too big we'd see the moon and
realise something was wrong.)

It seems to me that the worry about people miscalculating was not enough
to justify establishing a new practise of keeping two days of yomtov,
where no such practise had existed earlier. But in Bavel we had already
been keeping two days for generations; now our question was whether we
could finally stop doing so, and the Sanhedrin decided that since we
were already doing it we should continue, in case we will miscalculate.
Those places that never had the minhag were not required to adopt it.
(The Rambam's take would be slightly different: only those places that
already had the established minhag of keeping one day were allowed to
continue doing so; in effect, *they* were the ones to keep their lenient
minhag avot, while every other place must keep two, including places in
EY that had no minhag because there were never any Jews there.)

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher